


Not your typical Alpha

by AmbecaWatson



Series: Not your typical Alpha [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha Dean, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - 90s, Biological Racism, Biological Studies, F/F, F/M, M/M, Mentions of Prostitution, Mentions of pornography, Mpreg, Omega Castiel, Sexist Society, Threats of Rape/Non-Con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 08:02:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 38,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4340528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmbecaWatson/pseuds/AmbecaWatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a stormy January night in 1979 there was born a little pup in the local healing facility in Lawrence, Kansas. This pup was special. Not only was he the first born of his parents, Mary and John, but he should grow up to be a marvellous, change inspiring man. However, there was one tiny flaw in him, which earned him social slander, but also made him fight against societal prejudice all his life and incidentally helped him find the love of his life. This is his story. The story of Dean Winchester, an alpha who smelled like an omega, who was put on this earth to change it forever, with a little help from his friends and family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fic that was almost my DCBB, but in the end dragged itself on for so long that the events of this particular story span only a short stage of the overall story arc. This part is finished, but the bigger arc needs a lot of work yet, which is why I'll need more time for it than the deadline of the DCBB would allow. 
> 
> A few more notes at the beginning here. This work has multiple narrators, but for the most part it's Dean centric. It is a getting together story about two high schoolers who fall in love quickly, but have to face obstacles that society put in their way.  
> It is also a story about a society that could not be more backwards when it comes to omegas and bases this on their disinformation about their own biology. Furthermore, the characters attempt to change society by empirical research, which will eventually turn this dystopia into a utopia. 
> 
> This take place in the 90s, the only thing that diverges a little from it, is that there is good internet connection and video calls in this story. I took that liberty because it's essential for the plot. 
> 
> This is only the first part of a much bigger universe which I'm working on, to bring it on paper shortly, but for now, please enjoy this first part and let me know what you think. I won't put any more spoilers up here, but be prepared that some things are a little different from canon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On a stormy January night in 1979 there was born a little pup in the local healing facility in Lawrence, Kansas. This pup was special. Not only was he the first born of his parents, Mary and John, but he should grow up to be a marvellous, change inspiring man. However, there was one tiny flaw in him, which earned him social slander, but also made him fight against societal prejudice all his life and incidentally helped him find the love of his life. This is his story. The story of Dean Winchester, an alpha who smelled like an omega, who was put on this earth to change it forever, with a little help from his friends and family.

Four years later  
Mary

  
Mary felt exasperated. Today had been a really stressful day, Sammy had been fretful and bad-tempered, at six months old he was getting his upper front teeth and the teething gel had run out the night before. She had instructed John to bring some home when he finished his work at Bobby’s garage, or during his lunch break. It turned 8 in the evening now and still her husband was nowhere to be seen.

Because her, at the moment, youngest child had been crying the whole day, his big brother Dean had gotten a tantrum as soon as she collected him from kindergarten because he wanted to help his mommy and wanted Sammy to feel better, but couldn’t help either.

With one crying pup in the stroller and the other disgruntled at her side, Mary went home, praying for John to have brought the teething gel in the mean time.  
When they arrived, there was no note anywhere and Mary searched the whole house up and down, but in the end she was fairly certain that John hadn’t made the trip to the chemist yet.

She prepared dinner for the three of them and gave Dean the task to cool Sammy’s hurting dental damn with a spoon which gave her at least some time to prepare dinner in silence. All that, while her eldest laughed with his baby brother, playing peek-a-poo whilst Sam happily drooled on the cold piece of metal in his oral cavity.

But when she fed Sam, he started snivelling again, because however careful she was, she sometimes came against the hurting parts in the little pup’s mouth. By the time both her boys were cleaned and ready for bed, Sammy had found a constant rhythm of wailing, which would break any mother’s heart.

“Mom?” asked Dean.

“Yes, sweetheart?” said Mary, when her eldest stood in the door of the nursery although she had already put him to bed.

“Why won’t Sammy stop crying?”

“Because he’s hurting, love. He’s getting new teeth and before they come out they have to push through. That hurts.”

“Why isn’t Daddy home yet, mommy? Can’t he do something to make Sam feel better?”

“He will, love. He will. You should go to bed now. Daddy will be home soon.”

Dean didn’t need to know that Sammy had to suffer this long because John couldn’t be bothered to do this quickly. At the very latest, he should have been here two hours ago.

“ ‘k ” Dean turned around on his heel and Mary watched as the little boy in the fluffy bunny pajamas went down the corridor into his own room.

She then sat down with the baby in the rocking chair which was close to the crib, so when she had sung Sammy to sleep she would only have to reach out a short distance and place him in it.

Exhausted from all the crying, Sam fell asleep after a couple of minutes rocking in his mothers arms and while Mary carefully placed him in the baby bed, she noticed that John also hadn’t fixed the power socket in Sammy’s room which she had told him about days ago. Which was also the reason why she couldn’t leave her babies alone in this room, because the wires hung out and posed a life threatening danger to everyone who touched them.

She went out of the nursery and checked on Dean who had forgotten to switch off his nightstand lamp. Mary looked at the clock on Dean’s desk. Half past 8 already.

Perhaps John had been kept late at work, although Bobby was usually careful to send him home on time because he was very considerate and knew that John had two little pups at home.

Mary went down into the living room to wait for John to come home and to heat something from the freezer in case he hadn’t eaten yet. John sometimes came home late and had already eaten, so the habit of only making dinner for the ones that were in the house at the time of it’s preparation was a carefully built habit.

She zapped through all the channels and stuck with some romantic hospital series she sometimes watched, but since she had already missed the first half of the episode she didn’t understand why all the healing betas rushed to the emergency room while the alpha senior physician disappeared with a handsome omega nurse into the on-call room.

Then Mary completely tuned out when it became too apparent why the alpha had felt the need to escape from the hectic hospital everyday life and thought about what had passed while she waited with her screaming half-year old for Dean to finish kindergarten.

 

Another mother, who Mary vaguely remembered was called Ruby, had waited with her and they had chatted a little.

“Your boy has got some lungs on him, I bet he‘s gonna present as an alpha,” said the woman as an introduction, when Sammy gave a particularly loud wail.

“I’m sorry,” replied Mary. “He’s teething. But I told my husband to bring home something to make it better when he comes home from the garage.”

There was only one autoshop in Lawrence at this time and the woman immediately knew who Mary meant.

“Ah, yes. I know your husband. He fixed my car once. But at the time he was living in the small apartment over the garage. You can’t be mated for very long…”

“We’ve been mated for over 5 years now. I’m collecting our eldest here. He is 4.”

The woman suddenly looked consternated. “So, you’re saying your husband moved out?”

“Well, yes. We had some problems and we took a bit of time apart, but we are working on it.”

The woman grew more indignant with every word that Mary said.

“You couldn’t keep your husband happy and your pack together? What kind of omega are you even?”

Mary blushed deep red and Sammy must have sensed his mother’s disquiet because he gave another loud wail just this second.

The woman inflated even more. “No wonder you can’t keep your pup in order. I bet your litter is completely rotten in it’s core with such a mother.”

Mary didn’t know what to say to that. She always knew that this part of the country was a little more backwards than the bigger cities where omega woman who were without a pack, were still a valiant part of society because they went to work to feed their young and the stigmatism wasn’t as imminent, even though an unmated omega was free game everywhere.

Her own mother had been a single omega parent after her father had died from a heart attack. She grew up with different values, because it was so normal for her that her mother worked for the both of them that she hadn’t even realized the social faux pas she had just committed in telling an unknown woman about her problems with her mate.

Still, despite all her mother had done on her own, she still instilled moral code into her daughter that an alpha was higher in value then her and she should secure a connection to one as soon as she could and honour him in everything he did. That’s why she hadn’t objected to moving into the inner parts of the country when it became apparent that she and John had exchanged mating bites while he was stationed with his corps in the eastern coast port in which Mary grew up.

 

After that she didn’t continue talking to the woman whose face turned an ugly sort of red because of her anger at Mary and she fussed about Sam for a while, whilst praying for little Dean to hurry up so she could leave from her scene of humiliation. When Dean had finally come out she just wanted to get home and forget about the wretched incident.

 

Mary shook off the thought and moved over to the window to look onto the driveway to see if John’s car was finally there. It wasn’t.

“Irresponsible-” started Mary, but checked herself.

This was no way to talk about her alpha. But a little inner voice reminded her of the circumstances that had led to John’s moving out a few months ago, only shortly after she had pupped Sam.

 

John had always had a temper but Mary didn’t let him have his way with everything. The habit of not having dinner for him when he came home was something that annoyed John to no end and they had a heavy argument that led to some angry words with John leaving through the front door which he banged so loudly that both boys woke up with a start. Dean, who usually never cried, shed bitter tears of abandonment when he heard from his mom that John would be gone for some time.

Mary was fully intent on fixing things with John however and that resolve only increased when she came to the realization that she was, only two months after the birth of Sam, with pup again. She had told John about it and in the wake of this announcement, he had moved back home, but he continued to come back late, sometimes drunk and mostly in a bad mood.

It couldn’t be helped. Mary knew she would have another rough day tomorrow, her pups would be quarrelsome and it would only grow worse as the new pregnancy went further along. She would be exhausted even more quickly, so she decided not to lose any sleep.

Before she lay down she checked on the pups again. Dean had rosy cheeks because he was so warm and sleeping soundly and Sammy just kicked his favourite teddy bear from his crib with his tiny feet when she looked in. Mary chuckled a little. Quite a kick it was because it sent the bear through the room so it landed on the opposite wall. He was a strong pup and would get really big, she just knew it.

A tad later, she had gotten ready for bed but could not fall asleep yet. Between the teething, the awkward social moment at kindergarten and John’s continued absence, she could still not shake the feeling that she was forgetting something. She tossed and turned and couldn’t make out what it was she was missing, but over her pensive thoughts at long last fell asleep.

 

She woke up after what felt like seconds because she knew that something was very, very wrong. The pups!

She snapped out of sleep so fully as if ice had been poured into her veins and ran to Sammy first and saw the whole room ablaze with fire. She screamed at the top of her lungs.

“SAMMY!” and dodged into the room as fast as she could to get the pup. The second she had the baby securely in her arms she realized what had been gnawing at her. The teddy bear! It landed exactly on the exposed wire and from what she could see, it was where the fire had started. Suddenly she heard a loud cry.

“MOMMY!” Dean was again standing in the nursery door but not with the same sleepily concerned expression he wore an hour ago but with sheer panic in his eyes.

“DEAN!” She ran over to her little boy and tried to get him to move.

“Baby, we gotta go, we can’t be here,” but Dean stood as if he was rooted to the spot because of his panic.

“DEAN!” Mary screamed again.

The small boy focused on her.

“We gotta get out as soon as we can. I’m gonna take your brother. Can you walk?”

Dean shook his head. Mary sighed and pressed Sammy to her bosom with one hand.

“It’s ok, baby. I’ll watch over you,” and she picked up the terrified 4-year-old in her other arm and with her arms cradling the boys and inside her belly protecting their unborn sibling, Mary stumbled out of the door and brought all four of them out to safety.

 

Hours later, in the comfort of the small apartment over Bobby’s garage which now housed three live Winchesters and one unborn, Bobby had wrapped Mary in a thick blanket. But when John barged through the door, smelling faintly of whiskey, Bobby insisted on getting Mary something to eat from his house  went out, so he wouldn‘t see what followed between her and John.

Mary looked up at John who started to stutter.

“I was at the house… What happened? Are you ok?”

Mary responded calmly. “No, not really. We all made it out, but Sammy’s bear landed on the live wire from the socket and it must have caused a spark that lit the whole house ablaze.”

“Oh god,” mumbled John. “At least you’re all ok.”

“Yes, we are.”

“I should have been there.”

Mary shrugged. “It’s ok, nothing happened to us. I got us all out just in time.”

“We were so, so lucky.”

Mary didn’t respond.

Then Bobby returned, he fixed something to eat and a cup of tea for Mary that warmed her ice-cold hands.

He looked down at her fondly. “Try to get some rest now, I have to get back to Crowley. He‘s probably gonna get cranky if I keep him up all night, and I guess the idjit will want me to rub his feet again because they‘re swollen so bad. I swear, this pregnancy will be the death of me,” and with that he left the apartment to return to his own house a few yards away from the garage. He hadn’t even once looked at John.

Mary knew she was in shock but her thoughts were remarkably clear. She sipped her tea slowly and felt the warmth creeping into her every limb. When she had finished, she asked: “Did you get the teething gel?”

“What?” John asked, startled out of his brooding. “Oh… um… no. I forgot. I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok. I’ll just get it myself in the morning.”

Before this conversation, she hadn’t even thought about doing this herself, because she had entrusted this matter to her husband, her pack alpha, but now…yes, she would just get it herself.

She stood up from the table and went into the bedroom where Dean and Sam were napping peacefully on the king sized bed and closed the door firmly behind her, shutting out John who was still in the kitchen.

 

Three days later, John left on a trip and didn’t come home.


	2. Freedom at a Price

Mary  
Three months later

“Her mate disappeared months ago, and still she hasn’t found a new one. This harlot shouldn’t be allowed to bring her children here. And this so-called pack they live in doesn’t even have an alpha. We do not want our young to be exposed to such scum.”

“Living with two mated betas, with their rotten litter about to grow even larger-“

“-Have you seen Crowley? He is enormous, so bloated!”

“And who is the little critter to accept them into his pack? He hasn’t even presented yet. He might as well be an omega and then this whole so-called pack would come to nothing-”

“-Unheard off. Scandalous!”

“I bet they will have a red-haired pup in their midst soon.”

That immediately got the whole assembly to fall silent as if they had been struck by lightning. Yet, half a minute after this shocking comment, the uproar started again.

 

Mary was at parent’s day in the kindergarten, which had been initially planned so that she could put little Sammy’s name on the list of children to be accepted next year and  
see what Dean and his group had planned for their field day. When Mary arrived at the kindergarten however, it turned into a lynch mob against herself as soon as she entered the group room.

She was aware that most people shunned her at the supermarket, and they mostly didn’t even speak to her while she did the paperwork at Bobby’s garage. They flinched when she announced when their cars would be ready or when she asked if they also wanted a free oil check while Bobby tightened the screws and bolts of their vehicles.

Yet, this was a new low. She hadn’t yet faced outright hostility such as this, not only involving herself, but also her little Dean who had been gracious enough to accept Bobby and Crowley into their pack because they were as close as family anyways, and with Dean being the eldest male of the pack that Mary still had, it had been his decision alone.

The usual way to accept new members which weren’t linked through blood was for the pack leader to react positively to their scent and to let a familiar bond form. Since Dean already shared this bond with both his adopted uncles, it wasn’t really surprising to the Winchester-Singer household that they woke up and felt a pack bond formed between them all, which however hadn’t even been possible while John was still the alpha of the Winchester pack.

It was highly unusual that the pack leader produced a bond without any selfish interest in the matter. Some alphas went to bigger cities especially with the intent to sniff out and claim interesting smelling omegas into their packs because their first mate started to bore them or was too close to childbirth to take their knot. There had been cases of forced pack adoptions, or forced mating bites and a most unwilling pack link was formed. Omegas, who sported a mating bite, but weren’t with the one who bit them, weren’t accepted in society.

Alphas who forced the mating however, didn’t let their omega prey mutualise the bond bite, because they wanted to stay free, have them take their knot whenever they wanted and sport a physical mark that they had claimed them. There was no case of an alpha having exchanged bond bites with more than one other, and there also hadn’t been a case of a family pack bond forming without any mating involved.

Mary had noticed that her own bond bite, exchanged with John over five years prior, began to fade and the feeling of being mated disappeared gradually. Consequentially it gave those women another cause for gossip about the Winchesters and Singers.

People tend to talk badly about something they haven’t encountered before or have stereotypes against, only to be proven wrong about their assumptions and then to claim they had known about the truth all along, she thought.

Uncle Bobby and Uncle Fergus (which only Dean was allowed to call Crowley, as it was his real name and he loathed it) were family in all but blood and Dean had said, that not only would he be getting a sister soon, but a cousin as well.

 

They worked quite well together, Mary filling in as secretary and overseer of finances while Crowley was so far advanced and troubled by his pregnancy. So until Mary’s own young would be born, she would fill in and do the bookwork.

They had been able to purchase a crib for Sammy and a small bed for Dean. Everything they owned previously had been lost in the fire. Yet the little ones still slept better with Mary close and most nights Dean scuttled out of his bed, laid down next to her on the mattress and pressed his little hand into the part of her belly where he could feel his little sister kicking their mommy.

These days, Mary was so exhausted that when she came up to the small apartment, she almost fell asleep at the table over the calculus work for the garage. The apartment consisted of just the one bedroom plus kitchen and a minuscule bathroom in which she could hardly turn, now that her belly seriously started to swell. Every evening found Mary and the pups in the kitchen with her eyes drooping over her work. More often then not, Dean had to shake her awake with his little fists balled into her t-shirt to tell her that they should all go to bed now. The small granny-flat was their refuge and they were, for the moment, comfortable enough.

Crowley kept showing her the reigns of the bookwork when he wasn’t too exhausted himself. A pregnancy was hard work for a sturdy, 30-something omega like Mary, yet it was infinitely harder for Crowley, a 40-something beta who had never pupped before.

They would have to see how to make their arrangement work after they both had pupped and what would come next. For the time being, Bobby’s garage kept all of them going, even if he was down a mechanic ever since John had left.

Mary forbid herself to think about John too often, because essentially she had closed the door between them and had made no attempt to contact him. He knew where they lived and could drop by if he was interested in the well-being of his pups at all, and other than that, Mary had no interest in speaking with him again.

John had called her once to let her know his new home number, a Floridian area code, and said he would call with a number to reach him at work as soon as he had found some.

He said she could keep his car, because it had needed a repair when he had left, and he didn’t really care about the ‘67 Chevrolet Impala anyway. The car was already an older model now and he considered it too much work to keep up.

That was all she had heard from him and she really didn’t want to hear any more, but if he would call enquiring about the little ones, she’d gladly talk to him. Little Dean had stopped to ask after his dad sometime during the last month and she wasn’t sure he would ever bring him up again, if John wouldn’t show his face soon. Sammy didn’t even remember John now. However bad things were right now, she would call him and let him know when her little girl was gonna be born.

She had decided to call her Charlotte after the second name of her mother, Deanna Charlotte Campbell.

One day when Dean had desperately tried to help Bobby in the garage but couldn’t even hold the giant wrench he was trying to get to Bobby, she already had heard Bobby call her Charlie.

“Just you wait until your baby sister is born, boy. Charlie won’t let me keep my best mechanic in training, she will want her big brother all to herself.”

Dean had beamed at Bobby at the praise and said that he would still spend time with “Unca Bobby” as often as he could.

All of Mary’s pups had gotten their nicknames from Bobby, nobody called Sammy “Samuel” (after Mary’s father) anymore. There was even a short time when Bobby had taken to calling Dean “Dee”, but it hadn‘t stuck.

They hadn’t known Bobby as well back then and later he had used Dean’s full name so often: “Dean Winchester, get back here!” when the unbelievingly agile pup had done backflips in the garage or: “Dean Winchester, you stop that right now!” when Dean had climbed Bobby like a tree to pull at his beard, that the shortform of his name he tried to call him, soon got lost again.

John had never really taken an interest in how Mary named their pups, and therefore hadn’t objected to their first born being named after an omega mother, who hadn‘t mated a second time and instead raised her daughter independently.

Mary herself was quite certain she wouldn’t mate again either. Not while she lived here would any alpha or beta even come near her. And anyway, she was about to have 3 pups under 5 years of age and two close friends who were also expecting a pup. Her time was limited enough, without factoring a romantical relationship into it.

She therefore was all set to go the way of her mother and stay unmated. She couldn’t find it in herself to see anything frivolous in that. The indignant mothers had really nothing to go on when they judged her because she held herself better than others in her opinion.

She had heard that the same Ruby who had hassled her on the day of the fire actually sold her body to alphas that passed through because her mate, a mean dispirited man named Raphy, drunk them out of house and home and it seemed that the pup that was growing inside her right now, wasn’t a true born of her pack.

Mary had seen her at the infamous heat suppressant and general omega consultation-hour at Doctor Eleanor Visyak’s office in the healing facility, where only the societally fallen would show their face.

The doctor who specialised in omegalogy and midwifery (even for betas or in some truly seldom cases alphas) would rather hand out suppressants even though society shunned them (it was an omega’s role to be taken and bred after all), then having to abort any unwanted children.

Yet, the self-righteous woman who had insulted Mary months ago, had most likely undergone that procedure because while she defiled her to her face again in the group room, her belly didn’t show any signs of swelling anymore.

 

Mary had dragged Crowley to the consultation hour for pregnant betas and since Crowley was the only beta waiting, they had been on almost immediately. Crowley had decided against birthing in the healing facility because the slander that Mary faced, was just as bad as the things that were thrown at Crowley’s head.

He and Bobby had been mated for almost 15 years now, and since they were both betas, nobody expected them to pup.

It is curious, how people can forget about their own biology sometimes in order to believe that the hurtful things they say are actually true, pondered Mary. Betas were by no means barren, yet it was true that they didn’t have quite the intense sex drive as omegas had. It had to be a hormone thing or something, she didn‘t know for sure.

And yet, a pregnant middle-aged beta being as yet unheard of in these parts, some people had shouted that Crowley was a dirty whore who had gotten some very potent alpha cock into his barren hole repeatedly until he finally pupped.

The hospital directorate led by a man named Azazel, had walked by with suggestive looks and the medical officer Jake, who handed out prescribed medicine at the healing facility, actually palmed his cock and shouted: If Crowley needed any more semen to grow fat with a litter, he would gladly knot him. A hole was a hole after all.

On their next visit, they had thought to be proven correct when Crowley’s belly had swollen beyond all measure. Clearly there must be a super semen charged alpha pup in there to make him grow so big. The insufferable Jake had thrusted his hips at Crowley, and yelled that even though a degenerate like the older beta would obviously have a red-haired pup, he’d still knot him ‘til his hole was raw.

Those snarky remarks all had been uttered when he had visited Doctor Visyak for his first two check-ups and no matter how much Bobby glowered at the people giggling and at Jake who wouldn’t stop imitating ferocious coupling with his hips and however quickly Mary rushed them along, Crowley still heard the most of it.

He hadn’t gone to any check-ups after that, not even to one ultra sound to determine the gender of the baby, and had decided to have his and Bobby’s pup at home while Dr. Visyak agreed to come out to the garage to deliver it herself.

 

Mary had to agree that ginger pups in their pack were possible. Crowley’s Scottish heritage and the fact that his mother had also had red hair threw some ginger into the genetic pool from which their pup fished. And Mary’s grandmother too had had beautiful red hair, a fact that sometimes when the sun shone onto little Dean’s head, gave his blonde hair a slight copper tone, already now showing that his hair was gonna darken as he got older.

It was common knowledge that the percentage of red-haired omega prostitutes was very high because their hair and complexion were quite unusual and sought after. The brothels loved to get their hands on them as often as they could. On one blonde or brunette hooker came three or more ginger ones. Mary herself had met some omegas who worked as prostitutes but unlike others, she saw them as beautiful and strong characters.

Still, the fact remained. Ginger omegas were twice as likely to get raped openly on the streets. Yet again, just because someone had red hair, didn’t mean they would end up selling their heat to people, and there was no biological defect in red heads, that pre-presumed them to whore themselves out. Red heads didn’t spring forth out of nowhere just to be born into so-called dysfunctional packs to later in life become whores. That was just a completely biased, wrong assumption, Mary was certain of that.

 

Back in the dayroom of kindergarten, Missouri Moseley, the head kindergarten teacher, brought the assembly to stillness once she entered the group room because she had heard the uproar.

She had been severe with Dean in the past in a stern motherly fashion, but that, as she told Mary in a quiet heart-to-heart, was so that he would learn to stand up for himself, lord knows he would need to in such a society as this.

She started with: “Now, why don’t we all calm down here. Please. Think of the pups, it will be impossible to get them down for naps with all this shouting in here.”

There were heaved breaths but after a minute the assembly was calm on the surface at least.

“Well now, what seems to be the problem here?” asked Missouri with a quiet authority that prevented the group from breaking out into an uproar again.

The group leader, the same short, dark haired woman, that had insulted Mary previously, now answered: “We do not want Mary Winchester or any of her critters in this facility!”

Missouri seemed to boil inertly. “That isn’t your decision to make. I still run this kindergarten and I will not only keep Dean Winchester here, but I will also accept his siblings and the unborn of Bobby Singer’s mate, if they sign in on my list. Everyone who isn’t fine with that, can take their pups out of here this instant, and I wish you good luck in trying to find another kindergarten nearby, or even better, open one yourself. One for just the same upstanding citizens and their offspring that sit in this room today. The sort of omegas who look down on others because they work and don’t depend on their alpha while at the same time they themselves go out, procuring money with their bodies. I guess I won‘t have to tell anyone in here what double standards are, huh?” she ended with a smile that showed no amusement at all.

The ringleader coloured deeply and seemingly found her shoelaces very fascinating now.

“If we’re all finished here now, the pups demand attention. I‘m sure it‘s going to be quiet here now, isn’t it?” and with that Missouri went out of the room to read a story to the youngest pups who would take a nap now.

 

Mary had thought of quitting Lawrence and was doing so again right now. She had discussed it with Bobby and Crowley, but Bobby had felt like it was laying down arms and wanted to stay on, even though it might have been easier somewhere else. Somewhere close to where Mary came from, but there was the garage to think of and they couldn’t just pack up and open a new one somewhere else, because the coast port’s prices to rent or buy real estate were much higher.

They had to work with what they had, and maybe once the pups were bigger and the money wasn’t as tight, go some place with friendlier waters.

For now though, Mary was immensely grateful for people like Missouri Moseley and Doctor Eleanor Visyak out there, who defied that branch of people from which Ruby sprung. Mary felt that if she grew more like these women, she could take on this world.

She kept a safe distance from the angry crowd, put Sammy’s name on the “To Be Admitted” list and heard that Dean and his group were gonna need some marshmallows on their field day to make s’mores and was assured that they would be closely supervised so they couldn’t hurt themselves.

Then she found Dean, unusually quiet, sitting in a corner, waiting for Mary to pick him up. She knelt down, even though her ankles and belly protested painfully at that.

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

Dean didn’t answer.

“Wanna go home now?”

“Yes, mommy.”

 

Dean didn’t say another word, while walking to the Impala, or while Mary buckled him into his child safety seat, or on the ride home.

Only when they were walking towards Bobby’s house where Crowley played sitter for Sammy, did Dean shove his little sticky palm into his mother’s and said: “Mommy, I don’t want to go on that field day. I want to stay here and make s’mores with you and Uncle Bobby.”

Mary looked down and saw an earnest little scrunched face looking up at her.

“Why don’t you want to? It will be fun.”

“Mommy, those people were so mean to you, I don’t want them to be mean to me too. I want a family day, not a field day.”

Mary sighed. The poor boy must have heard the insults. “Oh, my little angel. Those people just don’t know better. They are mean because they don’t understand difference. You are a wonderful little boy no matter what they say, and I love you very much. We will get through this, won’t we?”

Dean gave an unsure nod, not sure if he believed it or fully understood it yet but wanting to agree with his mother and comfort her.

“Yes, mommy. We have us. That is enough. Can we go and look if Sammy is up? I want to play with him and we have to check if Uncle Fergus is ok.”

Mary gulped and nodded at her boy. She said in a throaty voice: “Yes, let’s check if he has gotten bigger since this morning.”

Finally Dean smiled again and quacked a little boy laughter, showing off his milk teeth.

 

Of course Crowley hadn’t gotten bigger, his pregnancy was near the end anyway. It could only be a few more days before he gave birth and Bobby had almost wholly abandoned working at the garage. Mary still took on new orders and cars, yet Bobby fiddled about them while checking on his mate every five minutes and really didn’t get very much done.

When they opened the front door, they heard Crowley’s English accent coming from the den, which was mostly used as an office but right now had transformed into a birthing room. He was complaining, like always since he couldn’t see his feet anymore.

“Bobby Singer, take this little rascal away from me, he’s squashing me. Put him into his playpen or somewhere, just get him off me.”

“In a minute, your Highness. I still haven’t finished with your tea.”

“Really, Bobby? How long can it take to brew a cuppa?”

“If it takes too long, you could always make one yourself.”

“Love, wouldn’t that require for me to move? And I can’t have you complaining about having to rub my swollen ankles again, now can I?”

A sigh was heard from the adjourning kitchen. “Spare me. Just stay still. I’ll be done in a minute.”

“But don’t forget to pour milk into it.”

“As if I would.”

Right this second, Dean and Mary rounded the corner.

“Ah, bless it. Mary please take your kid away from me, he is trying to stand up and he can’t very well do that on top of me, I am in agony already.”

Mary chuckled and took Sammy off the afflicted Crowley.

“Uh, aren’t you getting heavy, my love? Soon you’ll be as big as Dean.”

“Nah, he’s gonna be bigger,” announced Bobby when he finally emerged from the kitchen with Crowley’s tea. “No offence, Dean. Your brother is gonna be really tall later, he will be able to spit on your head.”

Dean laughed again, open and unselfconsciously.

“But he does that already, Bobby. His favourite game is ‘Slobber, Slobber‘.”

“Slobber, Slobber?”

“Yes, he slobbers all over me and everything else.” Dean laughed again heartily, holding his little belly and rolled around close to Sammy’s playpen. Sammy showed a smile at the capers of his brother and gurgled happily.

 

The three adults looked at the children with warm smiles and Mary observed again, that whenever there were children in the room, they took in all of the attention and filled you with a quiet bliss at seeing the truly unspoiled fun of youth.

Her smile dripped from her face slowly and she turned earnest again, when she remembered the incident from earlier and thought about how grown up Dean’s face had appeared when he had looked at her. She wished she could protect the innocence of her child, but she also knew that the kind of life they led was very tough and Dean would soon have to get used to being strong when he got treated badly. She noticed Bobby observing her and tried to get the smile back but she didn’t fully succeed.

Then Dean had found some toy blocks and sat down next to Sammy who enthusiastically tried to help him build something, yet never really managed. Consequentially he went back to ‘Slobber, Slobber’ all over the block he held.

While Dean seemed sufficiently busy, Bobby asked her about what had happened and she haltingly told them about Ruby and the rest. About halfway through Bobby had to lay a quieting hand on Crowley’s shoulder and told him to calm down whereas Crowley in turn took his hand and pressed a kiss to the calloused fingers. He remarked then that he‘d “raise some hell if I wouldn‘t fear to simply roll over them on my way.”

When Mary had finished, Crowley had pressed the hand he was holding to his bulky belly and Bobby lazily petted him, brooding. Finally he said: “Mary, right now I wish we could just leave. It would really be easier for all of us to just pack up and get the hell outta Dodge and have those stupid idjits stewing in their own filth, before the little ones get hurt. But with Crowley being so close to his due date, it may just be better if we waited until the pups are here and meanwhile Dean doesn’t go there anymore-”

“No, Bobby.” Dean apparently hadn’t been too busy to listen. “They’re still gonna be mean if I’m not there, and if I let them be mean to me, they will be mean to Sammy and mommy and to you and Uncle Fergus. I don’t want that. I‘m gonna be strong.”

Dean’s words had a sternness to them. If he had been an alpha already his words had the possibility to decide the whole fate of his pack, yet now he was nothing but a small human who would stand his ground and not go out of his way to let others treat people differently because they chose an unusual life style.

Mary thought about it, Crowley creased his brow and Bobby pensively patted his mate again. Dean was right, and whatever happened, they still had the possibility to leave if things really got too bad.

Bobby shrugged visibly and then froze. He looked down at Crowley, carefully clapping his belly again, as if to make certain of what he had felt, and then said to Mary: “Can you maybe come over here and feel Crowley’s belly for a sec?”

“What is this?” breathed Crowley short windedly. “I’m not an exhibit at the local zoo.”

Mary however came over and laid the flat of her hand onto Crowley’s plumb belly. It was hard. “Crowley, how are you feeling?”

“You mean apart from bloated, swollen and having immense back pain?”

“Since when did you have the back pain?”

“Dunno, love. Some hours. Couldn’t even hand Bobby the bloody tire leaver without cracking.”

Bobby looked quizzingly at Mary and she nodded.

“What?” asked Crowley, looking back and forth between them.

“We need to call Dr. Visyak. You’re in labour.”

“Oh bollocks,” deadpanned Crowley.

 

Mary brought Dean and Sam to bed while Eleanor Visyak was over at the house and delivered Crowley of his pup. She must have fallen asleep while waiting for Bobby to bring over news and only awoke in the morning when Sammy had started to make a fuss and Dean was cranky because he was hungry.

Over breakfast, a teary-eyed from lack of sleep and emotionally touched, Bobby came over and informed them that Crowley had just been delivered of twins.

“Twins?” asked Mary.

“Yes,” said Bobby, his eyes watering. “Two little girls. One with red hair, one with brown hair. Eleanor immediately suspected that it was twins when she saw Crowley again, and said it was only logical that he had been complaining so much. The pups were already in for longer than they should have. If the damned idjit had just gone to an ultrasound, we might have known earlier.”

“But everything went well, did it?”

“Yes, it went fine. But they’re all exhausted of course. Crowley fell asleep immediately and I should get back to Josephine and Jodelia and say goodbye to Eleanor before she leaves.”

“Yes go, Bobby. Enjoy these first hours, and try to get some sleep. And, congratulations.”

“Thanks, Mary.” And Bobby closed the door when he went out again.

Three weeks later, Josie and Jodie were already growing splendidly, Dean had smeared s’mores into the hair of a girl who had called him a freak and Mary was delivered of a pre-mature little girl who was otherwise completely healthy. When she had called John with the good news, he had hung up on her as soon as he heard that the girl had red hair, and he never showed up again.


	3. An eventful Birthday

Dean

Dean Winchester woke up unbelievingly excited. It was his 14th birthday and today was the day he would finally know about his secondary gender. He sprinted to the bathroom he shared with Sammy and prepared for a shower.

The healing betas who had been to school in grade 7 and 8 to tell them about what signs to look out for, told them all he needed to know and Dean was eager to find out what he was now.

They had assigned the pups on the verge of presenting into different groups based on their experience in scenting premature signs of secondary gender, but mostly based on the wishes of the parents, who obviously all wanted to place their children in the alpha group.

Ruby‘s eldest child, Meg, was also placed in the group alongside Dean, because her mother said so. Mothers usually didn‘t want their daughters to become alphas but her mother “was a needy bitch for recognition from others“ or so Meg said. “She always had to prove she‘s the best of all those sons of bitches.“

Dean was fierce friends with her, despite Ruby discouraging her daughter from associating with him and he had been sad for Meg on the day she presented because he could only imagine how she was treated now that she had disappointed her mother and also he would lose his only friend in the alpha group.

Meg came to school, the day after her presentation, as an omega. Dean could scent her pheromones. Meg of course hadn‘t been allowed to take any heat suppressants, because of her mother‘s wishes. Ruby had wanted more for Meg, she had wanted her to be an alpha, but now that she wasn‘t, Ruby felt like her daughter‘s worth had considerably been lowered. She declared that Meg‘s only purpose was to find a mate and be out of her house as soon as possible. Her hope to have bred an alpha in her womb would have to be satisfied by Meg‘s younger siblings now.

Meg was lucky she hadn‘t smelled a potential mate of the higher classes where everyone had already presented, otherwise her first day of being an omega might have ended with a claiming in the gym showers and an unwanted heat pregnancy. Since Alphas were totally unchecked by society and wild, uncontrolled knotting at school sometimes happened, it was open season when an omega in heat came to a school filled with young alphas, eager to try out their knots.

However, Meg didn‘t scent a bondable person on her first day of being an omega and Dean had gone with her to Doctor Visyak in the evening after school. Even though she was young, she controlled the urges of her heat admirably until Eleanor could get her some suppress-ex. Now that she had presented, it wasn‘t her mother‘s decision anymore to refuse suppressants to her. Dean was worried what would happen if Ruby accidentally found her medicine, but Meg said she would just hide them inside her school locker, besides there was no way she would “end up hanging off someone‘s knot and not finish school,“ how Meg quite vulgarly said it. Every day Meg came home from school, still unmated felt like a slap in the face for Ruby and she feared her daughter would have to go through the giant shame that she went through and graduate high school before she found a mate. When lunch time came around, Meg impersonated her animatedly, like: “Still not mated? You bring shame on us all,” and then she would grin deviously as if so show that her mother had a few screws loose, if she actually thought that Meg would choose a mating bond over education.

It was true. As soon as an omega found a mate, they were no longer allowed to receive any education, because they were following their “true nature‘s purpose“ already. In the sophomore, junior and senior year, the omega‘s got ever more thin on the ground and the last omega to graduate high school here had been Ruby herself. She had obviously felt like a genetic freak because all her other friends had by the time she was 17 and finished school, pupped at least twice already and she felt like the last person on earth to develop and behave ‘normally‘. She not only felt excluded, but really was. She had to live with the stigmatism of her peers, and however often she would go down onto her knees for anyone in the school who had a knot, nobody mated with her.

Meg had often called her mother a dumb slut, and she would be damned if she would go the same way as her. She didn‘t want a mate, she wanted to learn and to lead a more meaningful life, a life that didn‘t revolve around an alpha‘s pleasure.

Dean himself had to wait all the time until January 24th when he'd finally presented, while the group of potential alphas kept shrinking. Angered parents showed up at school and the healing facility to find someone to yell at because their children had turned into betas or omegas, which of course was bullshit, because Dean knew enough about biology to know that nobody could change anything about a person‘s secondary gender.

Dean didn‘t think that it was so awesome to be in the alpha group anyway, into which he only had gotten because he already had formed family bonds of his own and that was a sure sign of being an alpha.

The education teacher, an older guy named Alistair with a sonorous voice, had told them about the inherent alpha pride they should have and how as soon as their knots formed they would be able to take any omega like the bitches in heat that they were. He showed them videos where omegas were taken with ruthless force while the alpha yelled at them that he was gonna breed them and fuck them at his leisure.

Dean had to admit that the porn videos did something to his not yet mature manhood, but the stereotypes were so strongly present in the videos that Dean was also disgusted by it.

The omega, looking delicate and playing the perfect little fucktoy for the alpha, while the alpha himself was always being overbearing or narcissistic and was more interested in watching his knot swell than in the omega in which it would be buried.

Dean‘s classmates seemingly didn‘t share his moral doubts about the education videos. Some of them had to leave the room in a hurry and when they came back after a few minutes, Alistair was always asking: “Did you pop?“

This was Alistair‘s most important concern. If his alpha education pupils ran out to jerk themselves off, he always wanted to know if they maybe already popped their knot.

Dean had felt his member swelling sometimes but whenever the porn stars behaved like a walking gender behaviour commercial, he had lost interest in it and he definitely didn‘t need to relieve himself in the bathroom. Alistair was wary of that fact, and kept yelling at him: “Winchester, I‘m sure I‘ll get you today. I have a video that will make you pop.“

But it hadn‘t happened and his teacher began to think that Dean wouldn‘t become an alpha after all, and then: “What will happen to your family when you can‘t be their pack leader anymore, huh?“

The videos however, raised Dean‘s interests in other respects. His curious question about why they didn‘t see videos about female alphas and how that worked, got a snarky remark from Alistair that female alphas were degenerates and would never be able to mate anyway. Which didn‘t convince Dean at all. If they weren‘t able to breed then why would they be alphas?

Another question which he asked himself was if sex really was just about pounding into a ready hole or if there was something more to it, for instance what could you do with your hands or mouth? Alistair chose not to grace these questions with an answer. His main concern was to prepare his young students for the animalistic pleasure of burying their knots in willing (and also unwilling) bodies and prove their Alphaness to be superior when they bred their sex partner.

Also Dean was interested in the biological aspect. Did all omegas carry a womb since they were born and couldn‘t that be determined with ultra sounds before presentation? And how was it possible that male omegas could pup without having a direct passage to their wombs?

Alistair had looked at him disdainfully and said: “What does it matter how omegas work, as long as they can take knot?“

Dean had asked Eleanor all those questions when Alistair had proved a dud in this respect, and she had been understanding of this problem. She had told Dean that male omegas had a canal that went into their wombs which only fully opened when the omega had orgasmed, they were in heat, and the knot of the alpha prevented their ejaculate to run out. Then, the liquid could leak into this tube and then there was a possibility that the omega could get pregnant.

She also said that technically any omega woman should have that anatomical peculiarity too because they shared the same DNA, but she hadn‘t had done any empirical research about the matter. Most parts of society wouldn‘t be interested in a clinical study were the possibility that female omegas could get pregnant through anal sex as well, was explored.

As for his question about wombs in every omega even before presentation, Eleanor had said, that that would most likely be true and she would love to explore the possibility further by testing young children, but she also commented, that it was highly unlikely that she‘d get probands.

“Crush their hopes of getting alpha children even before presentation? I think that hardly any parent would find that ok,“ she had said and when Dean thought about parents like Ruby, he couldn‘t help but agree with her.

Dean however, let her check his lower belly and she could say that he definitely didn‘t have a womb and therefore could only be an alpha.

Dr. Visyak had thought further and they had pondered about the fact that betas didn‘t breed as often as omegas. She knew that betas carried wombs, Crowley‘s pregnancy had been the best example. But she wasn‘t sure how many betas had them and since betas were more likely to mate with other betas, the low rate of beta pregnancies could be explained because neither of the partners had a uterus, or the partner who had genetalia inserted during sex, didn‘t have it, but the other. Also, betas didn‘t have knots and conception could be made difficult if the potent liquid didn‘t even reach the tube to the womb because no knot held it in place. All those observations were fascinating in themselves, but they didn‘t help Dean to come to terms with the biased view that his alpha classes provided.

However, Dean‘s sexual education class had been good for one thing at least. They had shown him one thing about himself, namely that it didn‘t matter to him what the primary gender of the omega, he saw on the video, was. He liked the looks of both male and female beings.

Alistair had also shown them videos of alphas rocking into betas and betas amongst each other, and the films were carefully conceived so that those forms of coupling were made less appealing. The alpha porn actor took a very long time to climax inside a beta and loudly yelled at her why she couldn‘t be sexier for him and that she should be lucky to be graced with a thick alpha cock inside her. The betas had awkwardly rutted together for over half an hour until one finally spilled himself into the butt of the other and the bottom had been yawning all throughout the intercourse.

Dean would be glad to get away from Alistair and his unrealistic, socially normed porn videos, as soon as his 14th birthday would be over, yet he wasn‘t eagerly expecting the higher classes of alpha education either.

From the 50 male pupils in Dean‘s year, 45 had preliminary been placed into alpha education. By New Year‘s eve, the number had gone down to thirteen and only a third of total number had been alphas in the end. Alistair had slapped their backs like they had just been made president and escorted them to the next higher alpha education class the day after their presentation. Dean highly doubted Alistair would do that for him tomorrow and he actually couldn‘t wait to finally be rid of him. But just to be a 100% percent certain, he had to test himself now.

 

He climbed into the shower, turned on the water and began checking himself like the healing betas had told him. He checked his butt, just to be absolutely certain it wasn’t lubricating and he started the rest of his life as an alpha, the second he climaxed under the hot spray of the shower and found, that yes indeed, there was a knot at the base of him.

Dean went out of the bathroom and walked down the hall to breakfast, dressed and ready to tell the news. Yet, there was nobody in their kitchen. He then walked over to Bobby’s house. Also empty. Nobody at the garage or Ellen’s house either.

 

Their little pack had grown ever since Bobby’s friend Ellen Harvelle had stopped by on her way to the coast with her daughter Jo, some years ago.

Business had picked up a little, Bobby had found a new mechanic, a man named Jim who had once been a clergyman yet had abandoned the pulpit when he had become aware that his parish regularly ganged up after his sermons and mistreated a different omega each week as their usual Sunday afternoon activity. He just couldn’t stand that such vile actions happened within his flock and so he had gone to Bobby who had trained him up as a mechanic which immensely satisfied the former pastor Jim.

Since he had not been able to fix society, the company of cars that could be up and running with a simple repair gave him the feeling that he at least could do something right.

So, he worked at the garage 40 hours a week and Bobby had someone to complain to, and have a beer with when he about had his fill of idjits that screwed up the cars they fixed for them.

Crowley had started to buy up used cars, so they could sell them once they were done up again and Bobby had taught Mary, not only how to do the books but also how to fix up cars, but it hadn’t been what she wanted to do in the long run.

She had toyed with the idea to open a diner because the lot of the garage was huge and mostly unused and there would be enough space for construction. They had already built a one storey home with four small bedrooms, two bathrooms and a huge homey kitchen for the Winchesters and yet there was more cramped up space full of old car wrecks and unusable old material which would only need to be cleared.

Ellen’s visit had been a gift that must have been sent from up above, because she was looking for work after her husband had been killed and they had had a small bar back in the day, and so she knew all the stops to pull when opening a business.

Ellen had decided to stay at the granny-flat for some time to give Mary some tips and also to earn some money before Jo and her went on their journey again.

 

That had been years ago, they had built the diner which in the end got turned into a roadhouse which even had three rooms to be rented out over night by weary travellers and Ellen had purchased the empty lot next to their property and built a snugly cottage with enough space for Jo and herself.

Mary Ellen’s Roadhouse, how they had named it, was therefore the last stop on Dean’s search for his now bigger pack, having formed a family bond with Ellen and Jo about three months after they had gotten here and it transpired that they would stay for longer.

 

He entered through the kitchen and swung open the bar doors to get into the taproom where he found his family, all standing under a banner that proclaimed “Happy Birthday Dean“ and a table laden with presents. Even Missouri, Jim and Eleanor were there.

Missouri had retired as kindergarten supervisor after Josie, Jodie and Charlie had gone to school but she was too restless to stay at home for good. Her husband Richard still worked as senior physician at the healing facility and so nothing was more logical than to have her helping out at the Roadhouse whenever she felt up for it and was bored at home. There was work to spare and Mary and Ellen really appreciated the help.

Dean really didn’t like surprise parties, but since he had the day off from school, because it was his presentation birthday, he really didn’t mind it and also nobody did a forced “Happy Birthday” rendition, neither in song nor synchronized speaking and Ellen had put on the songs they usually played in the Roadhouse, mostly Classic Rock and Blues, and none of the East 17 and Backstreet Boys CDs that Jodie had bought recently, so all was swell.

There was chocolate cake and Charlie had apparently insisted on wearing a hobbit costume, because she chased after Josie and Jodie and said they’d have to be her dwarves and had to go on an adventure now, with Sammy bringing up the rear, shouting that “Josie and Jodie can’t be dwarves because they have to be taller than hobbits and I will definitely have to be Gandalf.

"Please Charlie, let me be Gandalf!”

Dean rolled his eyes about his nerd brother and sister, because he was way more sophisticated then the two of them, he had already read Lord of the Rings after all.

His presents simply rocked this year too. Bobby and Crowley had bought him a complete Led Zeppelin collection, Missouri had gifted him new lacrosse gear, Eleanor had given him a recent genetics book and additionally a voucher over 15 hours to explain what he was reading in there, the girls had chosen a remote-controlled car, which the elders bought in their name. Sammy had given him a voucher for big and little brother to build a tree house as soon as the snow melted. Mary had given him some Kurt Vonnegut novels because he had read Cat’s Cradle and had been very hungry for more.

Meg, who couldn’t take time off from school to come over, had brought a present over this morning, another voucher to go to a theme park. Dean groaned, because Meg knew he was scared of heights, but he also just knew he would have an awesome day, even though she would drag him on every rollercoaster there was. It still was a day off and a change of scenery. Besides, she must have laid by money for this trip for some months in secret, because her mother didn’t give her that much pocket money. So yeah, it was an awesome present.

John had sent him a card with 50$ in it, telling him to “Shoot first, ask questions later. You’re a man now, Dean. Enjoy yourself.”

Prior to Alistair’s education he wouldn’t have got the implications of the card, but he decided to do anything but what his dad wanted with this money. Maybe he would drink a load of milkshakes or rent out all three Star Wars movies and buy all the goodies like popcorn and liquorish for movie night, because whatever Sammy said: liquorish was classic movie food. He’d spend it on anything other than a hooker, thanks very much, dad.

 

Halfway through his party however, something happened. Dean felt the edges of his first rut coming on and everyone around him must have smelled it because they turned to him, most of them looked a little shocked, Mary clapped her hand over her mouth.

Dean blinked self-consciously.

“What?” he asked.

“Honey, have you checked your secondary gender yet?”

“Yeah sure I have. No surprises there. What are you on about, mom?”

“Your scent, it’s…” Mary didn’t know how to go on and Eleanor jumped in.

“Dean, you smell of omega heat.”

“What? But how? I tested myself his morning, I’m alpha.”

Dean panicked. He couldn’t have been wrong, could he? If he wasn’t an alpha he wouldn’t be able to hold this pack together, would he?

Eleanor was the only one who seemed calm, thinking it over.

“I’m not doubting that you tested yourself correctly, Dean. If the circumstances were different, I would say you have been with an omega just now, because you reek of it. But from what I can see, I would conclude that your first rut is coming on, and yet your scent…” her nostrils flared as she inhaled the air. “…suggests omega. The pheromones you emit are very potent.”

“But how is this possible?” asked Bobby, still a little shocked by the developments.

“I am not sure. There is so much we don’t know about our own biology yet and I am no expert on alphas. I’m gonna have to make some calls.”

Mary had more immediate concerns. “But what about tomorrow? Wouldn’t it be dangerous if he went to school, smelling like this?”

Dean could just picture what would happen. His first rut, making him smell like a ready omega in heat, and all the elder alphas who had shouted after him that he was a fucking pretty boy would love nothing more than to make him theirs.

And if Eleanor was right, which he didn’t doubt, his pheromones were very prominent in the air right now. He could only shudder at the thought of football games, when all the school was out on the pitch, smelling his scent through his sweat.

It was bad enough when an omega was taken against their will, but if an alpha like Dean would be mounted, he wouldn’t even lubricate and the physical pain would be intense. Animalistic instincts were wholly unchecked and even encouraged by people like Alistair, so the fear of falling prey to unwanted sexual advances couldn’t be dismissed out of hand.

And other idea had just occurred to Dean, namely that it was very unlikely that he would ever find a mate, smelling like this. Not that he desperately wanted to mate, but anyone he met would immediately be either confused by him or in the worst case scenario, disgusted.

Yet, the most pressing problem was how he could make sure of his safety. He looked into the round of his pack and friends, dread imminent on everyone’s faces. Not even Crowley, who usually always had a smartass remark on his tongue, said a word but only creased his brow with concern. Again, it was Dr. Visyak who spoke up first.

“Dean, I have an idea. Tonight, you… um… work through your rut and I‘ll go back to my practice to bring you some heat suppressants. I am not sure if they will work, so just in case I will also bring an alpha pheromone enhancer.”

“You mean like Viagra, for old dudes?”

“Yes. If we can’t suppress your rut with pheromone binders, we would at least be able to give you alpha pheromones which will mask your own inherent scent. But I have to warn you. Your rut will grow worse if you have to take the alpha medicine. I wish I had rut suppressants in the practice, but there is simply no demand for them here, because the alphas don’t want to impede their rut, just the contrary actually, they want it to be as potent as can be. I would have to order them in specially and the hospital would want a reason why I order them. If I talk to Richard,” she nodded at Missouri, “I’m sure he wouldn’t object, but the directorate might veto it. They are a bunch of short-sighted old-”

“-idjits?” supplied Bobby at this point.

“Indeed that they are, Bobby.” Eleanor smiled shortly.

“Hang on,” interjected Ellen now. “You don’t even know if our boy here has omega hormones in him, do you? Shouldn’t you make sure about that before you pump him full of all sorts of chemicals? Maybe that’s just how he smells.”

“That is possible as well,” nodded Eleanor, giving Ellen a short smile as well. “As I say, I have little experience with alpha biology. As soon as I signed on for the omegalogy department of university I was barred from attending any lectures about alphas in general and only got a small overview in general midwifery classes. Yet, that obviously didn’t stop the students from talking amongst themselves. I could make some calls to alpha specialists, but I am not sure many of them would be open to help. It could cost them their reputation if it comes out that they research, shall I say, unorthodox medicine. The first name I can think about is Adrienne Forbes. She is a specialist in alphalogy and neonatal surgery, she also studied at Columbia and was in my year. I believe she would help.”

 

Eleanor

  
Eleanor left the party shortly after that and headed back to the hospital. She let herself into her office and filled out a prescription for Alpha enhancers and Omega suppressants. She walked over to the medical officer in charge of handing out the medicine, it was the same black alpha named Jake who had badmouthed when pregnant Crowley had been in the healing facility. He scoffed at reading the wanted medicine.

“Who would need this weird mixture of shit?”

Eleanor bristled up: “Have you ever heard of patient confidentiality?”

The medical officer just shrugged but kept eyeing the prescription warily. He handed her the suppress-Ex and Phero-max she wanted, but yelled after her: “You know that the head of the directorate wants to know about strange medicine orders, don’t you? I’ll have to report this to Mr. Azazel.”

Eleanor didn’t answer him, but pressed on towards Richard Moseley’s office, hoping he wasn’t in surgery just now, so she could get his approval for the prescription before Azazel was on her back.

She was lucky to find the chief surgeon in his office and quickly explained Dean’s situation to him and her wish to help the boy to escape slander because of his scent.  
Missouri’s husband wasn’t happy about the situation and voiced his concern: “You have no idea if this is gonna work. The boy might have a hormone overdose, who knows what could happen to him.”

“Richard, this is the only thing I can do for him right now. Just imagine if the boy goes back to school tomorrow without something masking his scent.”

They were both quiet for a few seconds, trying hard to keep themselves from imagining what could happen to Dean.

Richard spoke up again, when he couldn’t stand to think about it anymore: “Eleanor, you know that this will only help the boy temporarily. We need to get rut suppressants out here now! But you know as well as I do that the board has to approve the shipment. We just have to come up with a reason why they should.”

They pondered their options for a while until they both agreed that if anyone could reign Azazel and his board of fanatics in, it would be them. With a little help from Missouri, no less.

They had just enough time to get her to the healing facility, and inform her about their plan, when Azazel, Jake the medical officer in tough, stormed Richard’s office, demanding an explanation for Eleanor’s latest prescription.

Missouri was the first to speak up, showing her usual quiet I-won’t-take-no-for-an-answer authority.

“Why do you wanna know about my husband’s prescription?”

Azazel flinched, and gave up his aggressive posture under Missouri’s scrutinizing look. “Your husband’s?”

“Yes,” Eleanor took over the word. “Richard has been complaining about pains in his lower abdomen for a while now and I‘ve found out he has a tumour. This medicine can bring him release from the pain and shrink the tumour without need of a surgery, so he wouldn‘t have to do rehabilitation. But we will need to order in rut suppressants, otherwise the hormonal imbalance might make the tumour grow.”

“But, rut suppressants?” Azazel snarled as if he suddenly had a disgusting taste in his mouth. “Is this filth really necessary?”

“If you don’t want to lose your head of surgery, then yes it is.”

“For how long?”

“Since there is no end to the fertility of an alpha, he will have to take rut suppressants for the rest of his life.”

The head of directory seemed to be thinking rapidly. Richard was his best surgeon, he couldn’t afford to have him wander off to a state where he could just buy rut suppressant without his say so. There was only one possible course of action.

“Fine. Richard’s health is very important to the hospital. He will get his… medicine.” By the contortion of his face while he said the word, Azazel might as well have said “putrid excrements” instead.

When the door closed behind Azazel, three held breaths were released within the office.

“That went well, I think.” Missouri beamed at them. “We can be glad that the suits have no idea about medicine. Just a bunch of pig-headed accountants, if you ask me.”

“Yes, it went well. But that‘s not the end of our problem.”

Missouri looked from Eleanor to her husband, demanding an explanation from them.

“Sweetheart, they’ll only send enough rut-press for a man who is nearing his 60s. Not for a 14 year old boy who’s just presented. Dean will have a hard time if there is not enough medicine.” Richard looked exhausted, he had known the boy since he started kindergarten with his wife. He wanted to help, but even his position of authority might not be enough to guarantee enough supplies for Dean.

Missouri seemed downcast once she realised what her husband had said but Eleanor spoke up: “I still have an ace up my sleeve.”

She stopped by to hand Dean his prescriptions on the way home and heard from Mary that the boy had been locked inside his room ever since the party had ended.

The scent inside the Winchester’s cottage was overwhelming, so Eleanor gratefully accepted a nose plug from Mary, so the conversation with Dean would become too awkward now. Eleanor knocked at his door, only hearing a little moan before the door shuffled open, showing a positively glowing young boy. Very nasally she told him to take two of the suppress-ex and alpha-max over the next four hours and then to wait for what happened. They would still have to make sure if his scent got successfully masked by the products.

“Thanks, Dr. Visyak.” Dean blushed a little and muttered very quietly, his eyes downcast: “Can you tell me what to do so I won’t chafe?”

“Moisture, dear. You have to keep it-”

“-Okay, thanks. Got it.” Dean interrupted her and pressed the door close immediately.

 

Eleanor went down the hall and only felt safe enough to breathe through her nose when she reached the kitchen.

“That poor boy.” She said to Mary, sitting at the kitchen table. “His teacher didn’t even tell him how to take care of his rut.”

Mary scoffed. “From what I heard about that teacher, the only thing he teaches those kids is how to humiliate and mistreat omegas.”

They both sighed at that.

“And that’s a big part about all that’s wrong in our society in a nutshell.”

 

Mary wanted to invite Eleanor to stay for a bit, but she excused herself, making Mary promise to give her updates on Dean’s situation and ‘mission: scent masking’ every few hours.

When she got home she powered up her computer and opened her livechat. A sigh of relief escaped her when she saw that Adrienne was online. She dialled and within seconds a very pretty red-haired woman, with intricately plucked eyebrows appeared on the screen.

“Hello, gorgeous.” She waved at her screen enthusiastically. “Eleanor my dear, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I have a huge favour to ask you, Adrienne, and if you’re very lucky we might get a clinical study out of it. But it’s kinda hush hush on my end, so you’ve got to promise to keep quiet about it.”

“Sounds very mysterious, but you know me, always happy to help you, particularly if it’s going to be a medical breakthrough. But first things first, darling. What are you wearing?”

Eleanor smirked. “You can see what I’m wearing.”

The woman on the screen raised her eyebrows and looked suggestive all of a sudden.

“Not everything,” she said, her face parting into a smile.

By the time Mary called about the first update on Dean’s rut status, Eleanor had established with her friend that it had been too long since they’d seen each other in person and that they would have to change that as soon as Eleanor could drop by and collect the desired suppressants that Adrienne would be able to hand to her.


	4. A Brave New World

Dean

Dean woke up, feeling feverish and drained. Working out his rut after he had taken the phero-max had taken practically the whole night and he felt sullied and sweaty.

He had only gotten a few hours rest and was physically exhausted, but nonetheless he got ready for school, washing off the last hours in a much needed shower.

When he got out, he saw his mum, Sammy and Charlie standing outside the door, waiting for him.

Sam was the first to speak: “Are you ok, Dean?”

They had spent the night either at Bobby’s or Ellen’s to give Dean the privacy to take care of his rut, Mary only checking in on him every few hours to report his progress to Eleanor.

“Yeah, I’m ok. I think it’s over now. How do I smell?” Just yesterday, this question would have appeared totally weird to him, today not so much.

“You don’t smell like omega anymore,” commented Mary and sniffed the air unobtrusively. “Yet I wouldn’t say you smell distinctly like alpha either.”

Charlie spoke up then: “You smell like my big brother.”

Dean felt his heart warm at the 9 year old’s innocence.

“That’s because I am, squirt.”

“No really?” asked Sam in mock surprise. “We had no idea, Dean.”

“Bitch.”

“Jerk.”

Charlie chimed in: “Buttholes!”

All three snickered while Mary just shook her head about her pups. She had tried to cut their little tag of war name-calling game a few times, but it had almost become a ritual, so she didn’t mind anymore. They had larger concerns anyway.

 

During breakfast it seemed like nothing was the matter, but when his younger siblings got their school packs, Mary quietly asked her eldest: “Baby, do you really feel ready to go back to school?”

“Not really. But I have to. If I don’t go, they’ll all think I’m an omega and it would be much worse if they can’t smell traces of rut anymore. I’ll get through this, mom.”

“I know you will. You’re so strong, my baby.”

“Then how about you don’t call me baby anymore, mom? I‘m legally responsible for myself now.”

“You’ll always be my baby. No matter how grown up you think you are,” and then his mom pulled him close for a hug.

“I love you, mom. You’re the best.”

When he let go of her, he wiped the moisture out of his eyes.

Damned allergies and nothing else, he thought, while he raced Sammy and Charlie to the bus. While they waited, Jo came up to them, holding Jodie and Josie by the hands and looking a bit pissed.

“You could have waited for us, y’know?”

“It’s not our fault you are lame ducks,” grinned Charlie and the three young girls started bickering immediately with Sammy joining in then and now, while Jo looked up at Dean: “You ok?”

“Ask me that another day, huh?” Dean shrugged her concern off. “Just hope when it’s your turn next year, you pop up smelling right.”

“Dean,” Jo said empathically. When she came here, she had harboured a little crush on the older boy, but that was years ago and had stopped after the familiar bond had formed.

“Don’t worry about it, Jo. There’s our bus,” he nodded towards it and then he and Jo as the elder ones got Sammy and the three girls in line before the bus pulled up to bring them to school.

 

Dean dreaded to go to his Alpha education class more than usual today. All the other lessons were easy for him. Even though he picked on his younger siblings because of their high intelligence sometimes, he himself wasn’t a bad student at all. Far from it.

Everything just fell to him, and he’d never even had a B on his reports until it came to Alpha education. Alistair was very quick to inform him, that if he had the authority to hand out grades: “Winchester I would fail you in this class as quick as I could.”

So it was with a very heavy heart that he turned his steps towards the classroom in which Alistair would wait for his final verdict.

Ten boys, all not yet presented, were already sitting in the classroom when Dean came in last. Alistair was waiting and grinning, once Dean opened the door to the classroom. Crucial test was go, apparently.

“Winchester,” Alistair purred. “It’s your big day, isn’t it?”

“Yessir,” Dean pressed out, standing in front of the whole class.

Alistair sniffed him very carefully and his nose was much too close to his face for his liking.

When the examination was over, Alistair announced: “That’s some funky smell you’ve got going there, Winchester. But-” he stepped around Dean‘s back smelling the nook of his neck and Dean got disgusted goosebumps right away. “That’s definitely rut I smell there, clear as day,” he purred into his ears again.

“Class, say hello to another new alpha, Dean Winchester,” Alistair turned him around for everyone to get a good look, before he escorted him out of the room.

As soon as the door fell shut, he clasped Dean’s shoulder in a tight grip. “You know, Dean, if you’d had presented as omega, I might have cut myself a little slice of your sweet ass,” he let his hand wander down his back and Dean ground his teeth when Alistair groped his butt firmly.

“But, you are a little alpha now, aren’t you? I need a moment to process this.” Alistair wiped an imaginary tear from the corner of his eye.

“I never knew I would have occasion to be proud of you, but here you are.” He gave Dean’s rear some more appreciative slaps and then grabbed him around his neck again.

“You know, maybe you thought this was the end of our little partnership? But I’ll tell you something.” He lent down to whisper in his ear.

“Alpha education teacher Mr. Uriel is resigning towards the end of the week. Couldn’t handle all the potent young alphas in his class, I assume. So, I will see you, back in class, bright and early Monday morning.”

He ran his arms over Dean’s frame appreciatively one more time, before he opened the classroom door of the higher up level of alpha education.

Dean turned around and felt his stomach drop into his shoes at the last parting smirk of Alistair before the door closed.

 

“Report that creepy ass son of a bitch!” was Jo’s first reaction when Dean met his pack and Meg after school.

“I’ll give him his throat to eat!” Meg spat out. “Little ones, you didn’t hear me say that, ok?”

Charlie and the twins obediently closed their ears with their hands to show that they heard nothing, but Sammy frowned at his older brother, all the wisdom of a ten-year-old in his gaze.

“Yeah, Dean you should. He can’t do that to you.”

“He won’t, ok. I’ll make sure he doesn’t. I know how to defend myself.”

 

Dean didn’t even mention Alistair to his family for the next month, he came in last to alpha-edu or as Meg called it, his “daily torture sessions” and left the room first to work off his frustration on the pitch, playing either lacrosse or football. He didn’t care what he did, the most important thing to him was sports and growing stronger.

If Dean had thought alpha education had been bad before, now it was pure agony. Alistair hadn’t really changed his M.O. in the higher up level with fully fledged alphas, but it was all more intense. Even if Dean still wasn’t all that turned on by what he showed them, his sexual organs were now quite unpredictable and whenever he felt himself swell he tried to calm and look past the TV, because he wasn’t sure the rut-suppress would hold through a full erection in class.

A room full of aroused alphas who caught so much as a whiff of the scent he emanated? He’d be lucky to get out of there alive.

Richard and Eleanor did their best to get him his rut-suppress on time but his ruts kept coming pretty frequently.

“Not to worry, that’s completely normal,” Eleanor told him after one of her visits to Adrienne when Dean had worried about how frequent they were.

“That’s not all, Dr. Visyak.” He had taken to calling her that when it was about his private parts and how they acted. Too weird to think of her as a family friend in a situation like that, she was his doctor after all.

“I’m always afraid to pop in school, our teacher is showing us these… uh…videos.”

“I see. Well, there are some exercises that you can do.”

 

Dean made his brother and sister swear they would never make fun of him, but yes he did breathing and relaxing exercises and they so did not resemble yoga at all, thank you very much.

Of course, Alistair was quick to notice that Dean didn’t show the desired results in class, so he switched his little speech at the beginning of class to: “Today I’ll get you. You’ll break, Dean.”

And every day, Dean hoped for a miracle and tried to hold on.

 

A new student arrived at Lawrence education centre about a month after Dean had presented. He was a senior and an omega, which was pretty unusual.

Normally omegas had already been mated by their families or through other means by that time and had left school. It was common practice in their society, so most omegas didn’t even object to having a lower rate of education than their alpha and beta peers.

Everyone was excited about the new arrivals. From their usual stance, they didn’t get many newcomers here. From what the gossiping neighbours gathered, it was a young boy with his adoptive parents, Naomi and Zachariah. Or so Meg told them, because her mother and her brigade had been relentless in their scrutiny of the new arrivals, being fascinated by the fact that there existed mated couples without children, who instead adopted non true borns into their packs.

The minute Ruby realised Naomi was treating her as a second class citizen and that her step son was an omega, she more or less lost interest in them. Meg however, remained fascinated with the new boy, especially because she noticed him at the omega appointment hour at Dr. Visyak‘s, collecting heat suppressants like there was nothing about it at all.

Jake the medical officer was quick to give the boy his usual vulgar greeting, but stopped once he took a full sniff of him. Something apparently wasn’t kosher with his smell.

The boy seemed totally unfazed of the social stigmatism attached to collecting heat suppressants at the healing facility, and Meg wondered if he was some kind of space alien who couldn’t give a flying crap about it.

It was another sign about how fucked up their system was that there was usually no need for omega-education in the higher classes, so Meg and him shared the same class. He pretty much kept to himself though and even though he sat at the “outcast” table in the cafeteria, he didn’t seem bothered by that either.

Meg had told them all about the new boy over lunch, but apart from her, nobody had seen him yet.

The cafeteria that the education facility shared was their lunch hall, which was the only time of the day that Dean was among his family until they got to the bus again. They always ate lunch together.

Dean was first in the dining hall and when the younger ones came in, Charlie was the first to come up to him.

“I need a big brother hug, quickly.”

“Ok, sure.” He embraced the little bundle that was his sister and gave her a kiss on the top of her head.

Who could judge him for his showing affection? He was already an outcast anyway, so screw them if he was affectionate with his pack where anyone could see it. Sometimes, people laughed or snarled, at other times they seemed sad when the Winchester pack behaved like a big, happy family during lunch.

“What’s wrong, anyway?”

“A boy was mean to me. He said I looked like the whore he nailed last night and I would be next as soon as I was ready.”

Dean growled. “Tell me his name and I will rip his lungs out.”

Charlie snickered and felt much better already. She really didn’t need Dean’s help and when he noticed a boy of Charlie’s age enter the cafeteria and eye her with a panicked look and a bloody nose, he was pretty sure Charlie could take care of herself. Which obviously didn’t mean he would ever stop looking out for her.

Charlie and Josie had had to face mean comments like that since their first day of school, just because they were red-haired pups. Josie especially came home in tears very often and nobody could console her except her twin sister, while Charlie just laughed it off but more often than not escaped into her very own world through books and movies.

Crowley’s niece had visited pretty frequently in the months after the girls had started school and she became their role model when it came to strength. She was an alpha who was mated to another alpha woman and had dealt with a lot of meanness herself, which made her grow tough as nails and able to take on anyone who tried to belittle her.

When Josie was asked what she wanted to be like when she grew up she replied: “I wanna be as strong as aunty Abaddon and as caring as aunty Mary.”

Gradually, Josie too got harder in the taking of these snide remarks until they hardly bothered her and once she didn’t react anymore, the bullying gradually disappeared.

So when Jo³, as the Winchesters sometimes called Jo, Jodie and Josie, entered the cafeteria, Josie was one of the first to ask Charlie why the big brother hug was necessary and reacted almost like Dean himself.

By the time Sammy blundered in, the girls and Dean had already started laughing out loud again and Charlie smiled the brightest.

Sammy was just in a weird growth spurt which made him seem very ungainly and clumsy. He almost tripped when he came over and his book pack promptly fell down from the bench when he unloaded his stuff on the table.

Out of the blue, Meg turned up, late from omega education as always.

“Take care, Sammykins. Don’t wanna lose all your books.”

“Thanks, Meg.”

She only gave him a pained smile and sat down next to Dean without another word. Dean leaned in closer to her and asked quietly, so that only Jo and not the younger ones could hear him: “That bad again?”

“Oh Deano, you have no idea. I had to write an essay on how much I deserve to be raped if I don’t willingly go down once someone wants to knot me. It sucked start to finish.”

For omegas like Meg, their educative classes weren’t like they were for Dean and they had to pass with good grades to even be able to continue studying, so that even if they reached higher levels of education they’d still have a healthy attitude about their non-existent self worth.

Again, Meg didn’t have any support from home because naturally, her mother had excelled in this class, and couldn’t understand why Meg was almost failing it. Usually at this point, Meg would impersonate her mother about how “you don’t need any of this maths shit, study for omega education instead. That‘s what you‘ll need later.”

If only Dean could only encompass Meg into their pack somehow, he would have done it long ago. But however close they were, the familiar pack bond didn’t form.  
Dean thought it had something to do with him obviously not wanting to adopt Meg’s whole pack and her father’s alpha bond not letting go of her in turn. Apparently he could only adopt whole families.

It was a sign of how bad Meg really felt that she didn’t say anything now and just picked through her lunch.

Jo’s whole face was an expression of pure sympathy and she asked: “How about we go to the movies tonight? You, me, Dean, a load of popcorn and a movie. I heard that Rufus’ movie theatre is showing ‘Breakfast Club’ tonight.”

Meg’s eyes shone brightly at that. “Oh yeah, let’s.”

The girls looked at Dean who couldn’t think of one reason why he shouldn’t go. Rufus always let them in for free anyways because he was Bobby’s eldest friend and all of them loved the movie and he didn‘t mind seeing it again.

There wouldn’t even be any danger of his annoying classmates being there, because their parents weren’t gonna let them see the movie anyway. A bunch of high school students who learned to get along, despite their “incompatibility” when it came to secondary genders? Yeah, no. Not really big on the list of movies that upstanding citizens would show to their children.

He’d probably need it as a pick-me-up after his own edu class today. Lately, the torture not to pop had gotten even more intense, because Alistair had them vote in a poll about what they thought was most attractive, and Dean hadn’t thought anything by it when he ticked the “dark-haired” box.

Otherwise he hadn’t been really specific, he just noticed that he was drawn towards people more if they had dark hair. So Alistair probably had rifled through his extensive collection and picked out stuff that Dean would especially enjoy, to make it even harder to keep his cool in class.

The younger children went to their building again after lunch and the elders stuffed the books they wouldn’t need for homework into their lockers. For the whole year, the locker next to Dean’s had been empty, if by design or accident, he didn’t know. But now the boy that Meg had seen coming from his appointment with Eleanor and in omega-edu shuffled through a stack of possessions that looked as if he had emptied his whole room into it. Books, clothes, movies, even- was that a plant?

“Hey, why have you got a cactus in your locker?” Dean asked stunned.

The boy looked up, his brow a little creased and Dean felt himself drawn into the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. The boy titled his head a little, his mouth opening slightly and a fascinated smile appeared on his face. The smile was so small that it was hardly noticeable, but Dean saw it, because the small movement registered in his brain and he looked at the boy’s mouth a split second after his lip had quivered. In the next second he was drawn back to the boy’s eyes.

He didn’t know how long they stared at each other, he didn’t know if he’d ever find his voice again, he could just stare openly and without restraint. After several seconds (or was it minutes?) He cleared his throat and licked his bottom lip once. The boy opposite looked down immediately, but met his eyes again a second later as well, only to start smiling more broadly.

Dean’s brain was frozen. He tried to say something. Anything. If he wasn’t careful, he would ask the boy anything right now. Take a plane to Tuscany and settle down as wine farmers together. Run away into the sunset until they didn’t have any land under their feet anymore and profess his undying love for him against a setting of a sunlit sky with the waves of the Pacific crushing around them. Simply sweep him off his feet and ask to claim him as his right then and there. All seemed like valid possibilities to come out his mouth now.

Before he could form one word though, Jo and Meg came up and teased him, “Hey, Dreamy-chester, haven’t you got a class you need to go to now?”

Dean startled but forced his brain to remember how to look at a watch. Damn, they were right. Alistair’s class was starting right about now.

“Shit,” he cursed and flinched away the other boy to close his locker and shoulder his backpack.

The boy at the next locker hadn’t moved yet. So Dean took up all his courage and turned back to the boy: “Name’s Dean,” and as an afterthought, given what they were gonna watch this evening he said: “Don’t you forget about me.”


	5. And so it begins

Dean

“You’re late, Dean.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled and sat down on his standard seat in the last row.

“Not to worry, I have something special for you.”

So Dean unwillingly looked up onto the TV where the video they were watching had already taken it’s usual predictable plot twist. He didn’t care about the female omega with almost black hair opening the door for an alpha pizza man (because really, since when was any alpha happy with working as a pizza man?) and the omega just spread herself open, but the alpha didn’t simply mount her but spanked her butt a couple of times before he pushed in.

Alistair really started pulling out the big guns, showing all kinds of kinks that made the other alpha boys hiss with pleasure and made claiming hormones course through their veins. Randy next to Dean even had to excuse himself for the bathroom about 5 minutes in, but all Dean could think about were blue eyes and dark brown hair which didn’t belong to any of the people in the video.

The next door neighbour of the pretty omega, who had heard strange noises, came through the door which the pizza man had left open in his haste to knot. The omega didn’t even seem fazed, she just parted herself even wider and Dean could see that the actress had already had the preparation to be pounded in the ass as well, making Dean groan in second hand embarrassment, because hello, reality?

But two more of his classmates had to rush out to the bathroom as soon as the omega was hanging off of two knots.

Alistair seemed proud of his accomplishment, normally he was lucky if one of his students popped, but now he had gotten three?

Five minutes later though, when none of them had returned, he announced that one of them should go to collect them and Dean was only to happy to comply.

Once he got into the bathroom, he knocked on the three locked cubicles.

“Oi, zip it up. Get it over with, Alistair says you should come back in.”

And then he went to wash his hands, because even being in the same room as these horn dogs made him feel dirty.

Obviously the boy from before couldn’t have chosen a better time to leave his class to go to the toilet. The door opened and the same blue-eyed gaze found Dean’s immediately.

“Hello Dean,” he said and he came two steps closer to Dean, his stomach was doing somersaults inside him, because the boy really hadn’t forgotten his name.

Duh, Winchester, you met him a couple of minutes ago, of course he still remembered your name. Get a grip, Dean chastised himself mentally.

The other boy was still a little taller than him and so Dean had to look up to see his face again. Had that been like this before? He couldn’t remember. His mind had been that blank.

“I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself before, my name is Castiel.”

“Hi,” Dean said and the boy, Castiel, gave a deep chuckle at the younger boy’s stupidity.

Before they started pointlessly staring into each others eyes again, they heard something that suddenly made the whole atmosphere change.

Neither of them had noticed the scents around them, but after a fierce growl from one cubicle they sniffed shortly and Dean’s brain went into full panic mode. Castiel had blundered into a toilet with three sexually aroused alphas in it!

Randy’s door opened first, he sniffed and his eyes fell on the omega in the room. The hungry look in his eyes was all the warning they got before Randy, his trousers still open and pushed down, made a move as if to grab Castiel. Dean found his cool again and just stepped on the trousers that tangled around his legs, with one hearty step.

Randy was falling face first onto the floor and was howling in pain as soon as his erect penis crashed hard onto the cold floor and his full weight fell onto it afterwards.

This sight alone brought Gordon and Kubrick to reason who, unlike Randy, had closed their trousers before they opened their doors and instead of going after Castiel, they started laughing about the pained yelps of Randy.

Dean still wasn’t happy with things as they were, so he took Castiel by the hand and led him out of the bathroom. His stupid stomach was coiling happily again, because he was holding Castiel’s hand in his.

“Hey, um… Maybe you shouldn’t use this bathroom when people are taking some me time out of alpha edu.”

“Yes, I rather think I shouldn‘t.”

They stood around a little awkwardly after that and both shuffled their feet for a bit. They hadn’t even noticed that they were still holding hands.

“Well, I will get back to my lesson then.” Cas slowly released Dean’s hand and nodded at him, turning to go.

Dean nodded as well, but when Castiel had gone two steps, he spoke up so loudly that Castiel flinched: “Hey, me and my friends are going to see a movie tonight, you should come too,” and boy, why did his voice have to be creaking high just now?

Castiel turned around with a smile that did funny things to Dean’s stomach again.

“Thank you, Dean. I like that idea.”

Dean grinned widely, still embarrassed. “Awesome. Just get to Singer autoshop at 5 pm and we’ll all go together.” His voice toppled over while he tried to get the directions out.

Cas just looked at him confusedly, seemingly not having understood everything, so Dean repeated his sentence, making a mental note that his chronic inability of talking like a normal person needed to be treated as soon as possible.

Castiel nodded with another smile that was almost cheeky. Dean stared after him until he turned round the corner of the corridor, covering his face in embarrassment.

“Smooth as rock salt,” he muttered and banged himself on the head before he went back to class.

 

It wasn’t a date, was it? It was more of a get together with friends, right? Then why was he so freaking nervous about their little movie night all of a sudden?

During the rest of the time of Alistair’s class, Dean was so distracted that he paid no heed to the people running out to the bathroom again, Randy looking at him with an “I’ll kill you” expression and Alistair’s smug smirk about the success of this particular video.

Dean was more concerned with the sudden realisation that he probably just had made his first friend at high school who wasn’t family and clearly made him more nervous than he should be. But he also couldn’t help but wonder how it could be that three alphas who had been raging with lust didn’t make any more serious attempts to get at a breedable omega within reaching distance.

Castiel was at the top of his mind all the while he tried to remember all he could about him. He could remember everything to the last detail, his eyes, his voice, his smile that apparently turned his brains into goo whenever he flashed it. Yet, there was something missing about his mental catalogue of Castiel and he nearly broke his head, trying to figure out what it was.

When another person passed him on their way to the bathroom, he caught a whiff of air and sat up very suddenly. That’s it! He couldn’t remember anything about his smell!

Sure, he smelled like omega, but just in a general, very faint way. That must have been why the urge to mate could have been counteracted with a simple distraction like unfortunate Randy nearly breaking off his knot.

This boy with the intense stare and the peculiar name became more interesting to Dean by the second, and if he was completely honest with himself, even though he didn’t know anything about him yet and his scent was hardly noticeable, he knew that Castiel was fascinating him more than any person he had ever met. He was definitely interested in the older boy.

 

The afternoon couldn’t pass quickly enough for Dean’s liking, even though Meg and Jo would be with him and Castiel, it felt like we was going on his first date. He had never finished his homework sooner than today, usually he took breaks doodling or staring out the window, but today he finished his chores with rapid speed.

Which was actually kinda bad, because now he had too much time on his hands and he stood in front of his closet, contemplating whether or not to change his clothes. In the end he decided against it. Because if he did change, he knew Meg and Jo would simply smell that something was up, even more so then they already had when they had interrupted their staring contest in front of the lockers.

At a quarter to 5, Dean stood by the Impala, now that he was legally responsible for himself, he could also drive the car without his mom next to him.

He kept ruffling through his hair, one minute wanting it spiky and keen looking, the next minute he felt ridiculous and smoothed it back down.

He had just gone through it again when Castiel came up, the soft smile that Dean had already developed a liking for, plastered onto his face.

“Hello, Dean.”

“Hiiiii,” he drawled as a cool comeback, leaning on the car with his elbow on the roof.

“You have a nice car,” Castiel said, looking at the object in question.

“It’s awesome, isn’t it?” and without thinking about it, Dean lunged into a detailed description of the motor and what size of wheels it had. How Bobby had taught him to fix her before he had even started school and how he and his brother had cramped toy soldiers and legos into the interior of the car. He also told him that their sister had painted their initials onto the backseat where it wasn’t upholstered anymore. The boys had just wanted to carve the names in with a knife but Charlie had interwoven the D, S and C with a big W in the middle, so that it looked really cool and they had grumblingly acknowledged that her idea had been better after all.

Suddenly, Dean realised that Castiel hadn’t said a word for several minutes, he just kept nodding and making encouraging sounds while Dean just rattled on about stuff which had to be super boring to him.

“I usually never talk that much,” he pressed out quickly, his arms suddenly feeling like they hung down too low at his sides.

“I don’t mind. I made that remark about your car, so that you could relax a little. You seemed a little tense.”

Dean gulped, a blush reddening his cheeks. “Guess I’m not that good at getting people I don’t know to like me, so I try to overachieve.” He was surprised that he had actually admitted this about himself, he had never told anyone about that.

“But I already like you,” was Castiel’s reply, a little less confident than he had appeared before, but definite.

Now both of them were too embarrassed to look into each other’s eyes again so they kicked the ground with their sneakers, both smiling to themselves trying to catch a look at the other without being noticed.

They were relieved when Jo and Meg finally arrived and after they said hello to Cas they apparently continued an argument which they had started while walking over. They carried on arguing on the short way to the cinema, Meg insisting that only salted popcorn counted as real, while Jo tried to make a case for sweet popcorn, but being unable to settle their argument, they both turned to Dean as final authority in the matter when they had reached the cinema.

“Dunno, I like buttered popcorn.” No way in hell was he gonna be dragged into this.

Both girls looked at him with disdain, then turning to Castiel expectantly.

“I can’t really form an opinion. I’ve never had popcorn.”

The girls looked a little shocked and Dean asked: “Dude, really? Like never never?”

“No.”

That settled it. The argument was forgotten over the new mission. Introduce Castiel to popcorn.

Rufus waved them through without wanting them to pay like always, handing out the three different kinds of popcorn without even having to ask who wanted what. Jo agreed to carry Dean’s popcorn in which was kinda atypical for her, but Dean was distracted when Rufus started talking to Castiel.

“Hey, I don’t think I know you already, boy. What’s this, Dean? Is your pack sprouting more members over night?”

So Dean introduced Castiel to Bobby’s eldest friend, explaining how he knew him and that he was like the best, because he showed the movies that nobody else dared to show, and they never had to pay to get in.

“By the way , what are you bringing next week?” Dean asked while the girls were irritatingly whispering to each other behind his back.

“Rocky Horror Show,” Rufus grinned, knowing full well that Dean had seen the movie more than 26 times and sure as hell would be here next week.

Castiel cleared his throat. “I don’t think I know the movie.”

Dean was shocked for the second time within a couple of minutes.

“What? No way! Ok, that’s it. There is no way you’re not watching this movie next week. I won‘t allow it.” Dean felt proud that he finally started acting like himself around the older boy, when Cas beamed at him.

“It’s a date.”

And just like that, Dean’s brain had been reduced to an amoebic state again, barely remembering how to transform oxygen into carbon dioxide.

“Guys get in, it’s already starting,” Jo called them from the showing room and Dean felt as if he had been splashed with cold water, but nodded and followed Castiel into the main room of the cinema.

He really liked it here. There were no classical rows of seats, Rufus had ripped those out when he bought the place, and instead had assembled a collection of really comfortable chairs of all different shapes and sizes. Luckily, the room was still sloping downward like most regular cinemas, so you could see everything from every seat.

Jo motioned Castiel over into the top row, patting the seat next to her, which happened to be the only loveseat inside the whole room. Castiel sat down without a second thought, leaving Dean little other choice than to take the seat next to him if he didn’t want to appear like a complete weirdo.

That must have been what Meg and Jo had been whispering about, wanting Dean as uncomfortable as possible, sitting right next to a boy who fascinated him and around whom he always made an idiot of himself.

Though if he thought about it, he wouldn’t have had the courage to take this seat even though he really wanted to do just that, if they hadn’t taken action like this.

Jo battered her eyelashes at him innocently, trying to hand him his popcorn, but reaching out not nearly far enough.

“Well get nearer if you want it, my arm isn’t that long,” she groused, playing the annoyed act really well.

Dean scooted closer, his leg almost touching Castiel’s now and received his popcorn, catching an eye-full of the older boy who thoroughly seemed to enjoy Jo’s act.

Did that mean he was really okay with Dean being that close? It had to be so. Dean took up all his courage and sat down so close to him that their thighs were almost touching, leaving almost half a seat of space between him and the end of the furniture.

“So, um is it ok if I call you Cas? Your name is kinda a mouthful and everyone I meet gets a nickname.” It was a habit he had picked up from Bobby.

“I’ve never had a nickname before, but yes. I’d like it if you’d call me Cas.”

“Can you please focus on the movie now and stop making doe-eyes at each other?” came a grumbling sound from where Meg had tugged herself in next to Jo, happily munching her salted popcorn.

“Maybe we would if you’d finally shut your pie hole, Meghara.”

“Bite me, you jerk.”

Dean smirked and explained to Cas who looked confused, in a hushed whisper: “She hates it when I call her by her full name, because she can’t get back at me for it. My name isn‘t embarrassing me.”

“Got it,” Cas smiled and turned his attention to the screen, taking a handful of offered popcorn from Jo.

Once Dean actually paid attention himself, he got sucked into the story, as always identifying himself with Bender, the omega boy who was so far from gender stereotypical as could be. If he could prove that biology wasn’t as important as the choices someone made and the attitude they showed, he would be a great man sometime.

Dean remained conscious of Cas’ presence next to him throughout and kept debating with himself whether he should venture further. There was nothing for it, was there? He had held the older boy’s hand already without even making any fuss about it, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to move his hand the maybe 3 inches to shove his palm into Cas’.

Chicken shit, he was being a chicken shit. But he prepared himself to definitely take the step next week when they went out again.

It seemed like a law of nature that the popcorn never lasted throughout the whole movie, the bags being empty around halftime, but Cas had sampled every different kind, so when the credits rolled, the girls demanded his verdict.

“I like them all.” He chose the diplomatic way out.

“Fair enough,” Dean said and dared the girls to bark up again with a look, but they didn’t and just shrugged it off.

Meg yawned and stretched herself. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I want a real meal now. What do you say, wanna to grab some burgers on the way home?”

“I’d love to,” Cas answered, looking at Dean, “but it’s getting kinda late and my mother doesn’t like it if I stay out that long. Maybe next time we could meet sooner and eat before the cinema?” Cas seemed to come from the kind of family who didn’t let their young completely run wild once they presented. Meg for instance hadn’t had a curfew ever since her birthday, spending her nights at the Winchesters quite often.

“Sounds like a plan,” Jo said, putting on her jacket and fanning out her hair afterwards.

They collected their trash and wished Rufus a good night on their way out.

Afterwards they drove Meg home, who was not as upset with her mother as usual and wanted to check on her younger siblings, which would also mean that Cas would get off, because he lived just two houses further down the street.

“Well you mutts, I had a lovely time tonight.” Meg hugged Jo and Dean. “And it was nice seeing you outside of those stupid omega classes, Clarence.”

“Castiel,” he corrected her almost instantly and then frowned when Meg just broke out into snickers. “Is this another nickname thing?”

Dean and Jo snorted. “Yeah, then you’d both have embarrassing names.”

And Dean clapped Cas’ shoulder. “Two nicknames in one day, huh? Pretty good going.”

When he removed his hand from Cas’ shoulder, he couldn’t stop himself from letting it trail down his entire arm, causing Cas to give an involuntary shiver.

“I suppose it’s only just. Meghara and Clarence against omega education bullshit.”

Dean was surprised that Cas was still so clear, his touch of Cas’ arm having completely shredded _his_ brain and pondering how it was that Cas looked so incredibly cute when he said ’bullshit’.

“Amen, brother.” Meg hugged him too and shouted out a “See you tomorrow,” before she ran up towards her front door.

 

Jo spoke up when they had watched Meg close the door behind her.

“Hey, that’s not fair. She gets you in omega-edu and when do we get to see you again?” she looked at Dean grouchily, who took on his role immediately.

“Yeah, Cas. When have you planned at meeting us again, huh?” Both him and Jo crossed their arms to force Cas to explain his outrageous behaviour.

Cas was apparently very clairvoyant, because he didn’t take them up on their act for one second and just asked: “Over lunch?”

Dean looked at Jo, who shrugged. “Sounds good enough for me.” She flashed a sudden, toothy smile at Cas and hugged him quickly, moving back to the car afterwards, effectively leaving Dean and Cas alone together.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

“Yes. I’m looking forward to meeting the other members of your family.”

“Oh, you say that now. Just wait ‘til you met my geek brother and sister.”

They fell silent for about twenty seconds now, a bit unsure about how or even if they wanted to say goodbye.

“Ok, I guess I’d better go in then,” Cas said at long last and awkwardly raised his arms, Dean’s heart jumping in his chest at the prospect of hugging the other boy and moved in closely.

He looked into Cas’ face, conscious of his every move and encased him in his arms, feeling Cas’ hands on his back a split-second later, Cas’ open palms and spread fingers fanning out over his back.

Dean didn’t know how long he could linger in this hug before it turned awkward but something deep inside told him to never let go again. Eventually he moved against Cas, tilting his head back from over Cas’ shoulder to hold eye contact with the other boy as soon as his eyes could focus on him again.

Cas had turned his neck towards him as well, so their faces were closer than ever before, both looking at each other with a contemplative look, their gazes darting down to each others lips once or twice.

Dean was ready to go first base, planned on it, expected it, but disappointedly felt Cas’ arms loosen around him, pressing his shoulders once, before entirely letting go, causing Dean to do so as well.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Cas said again, still close enough that Dean could feel his breath on his face.

He could only nod and stare after him as he walked a couple of yards before turning onto the walkway of his own house.

“Boy, you are in deep shit,” said Jo, standing by the shotgun side of the car.

He walked over, opening the driver’s side, while Jo seemed to fully expect to hear some shit from him now, because of the loveseat, popcorn and lunch date stunts she pulled, but he only shrugged.

“What’s this? Dean Winchester without smugness and sarcasm? I never thought I‘d see the day.”

“Oh, bite me.”

Jo just grinned at him.

“Stop it. Just get in the damn car, would you?”

Jo still continued to grin like the cheshire cat while they drove home, but thankfully enjoyed the REO Speedwagon that was on the radio too much to talk over it.

After Dean pulled the car up to the garage, they walked around the big building to their houses, he said: “Thanks, by the way.”

“For what?”

“For all you did today. Suggesting the movie night and all. Meg really needed some distraction.”

“And it gave you a chance to ask Cas out again.”

“Yeah, that too. And about the… you know, stuff you did.”

Jo looked at him in disbelief, never having expected this reaction from him.

“Honestly, I expected you to give me grief for it.”

“Yeah, well I’m not. I just wanna… thank you.”

“Yeah, don’t mention it,” Jo said in complete earnest now. “Can’t have you screwing this up, Awkward-chester.”

“You know your nicknames never get any better, right?”

“What we can’t all come up with something like: ’Cas’, now can we?” She breathed the nickname in a deep, faintly dirty whisper.

“Why do I even like you?”

“Cause you do, you big moron,” she quickly hugged him when they got up to her home. “Later bro.”

“Yeah bye,” Dean said so faintly that Jo couldn’t have heard him and walked on towards his own house, his mind filled with the persona of a certain someone and the events of today.

 

Missouri came in to work the next day, with it being delivery day, they always needed all hands on deck. Dean helped carry in the heavier stuff before school. She beckoned them all to the kitchen, having to tell them some bad news; Mary and Ellen came in from the taproom, where they had arranged the new liquor bottles.

“Richard has had an accident. Nothing too bad though”, she calmed them down immediately. “He tried to screw in a light bulb and couldn’t be bothered to move the table. So when he leaned over to far on the step ladder, he fell and now he’s in the healing facility with a contusion to his coccyx.”

Everyone was a little shocked, but Missouri just went on: “It will heal, in time. He can’t sit properly though and he has to stay in the hospital ‘til it’s all alright again. But that’s not all. They’re sending the medication to the hospital instead, Dean.”

“Ok? Do I have to go there to collect it?”

“You misunderstand, son. They’ve put Richard on the meds, and a nurse is making sure he takes them.”

“Meaning Dean will miss out on dosages?” Mary figured.

“Sadly, yes. Eleanor is already trying her best to get you more before you run low, but her contact can only supply so much before people start to question her. She said to tell you that, as long as you keep to a strict schedule with the meds and keep calm in the mean time there shouldn‘t be any trouble,” she ended on an encouraging note.

That was all well enough, but they didn’t yet know that Dean was anything but calm since yesterday. Having a crush and wanting to kiss someone would really not help to keep the production of his hormones in check.


	6. The Edges are cracking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the end of this chapter there is an assault portrayed, which is stopped before anything bad happens.

Dean

 

Richard Moseley would stay in hospital for six weeks at least, leaving Dean with insufficient rut suppressants from now at least until late April.

He told everyone over lunch today, at the same time letting Cas, who was true to his word sitting with them now, in about his little scent problem.

“How can we be of help?” he asked, including himself into the group of people immediately.

“Unless you can come by rut-suppress without involving the hospital, you really can’t. It’s fine though. Most of the time I can control myself pretty well, it’s just alpha-edu. Alistair has been out for my head, or rather for me to pop in class since forever.”

“And that could become potentially problematic.”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

The whole lunch group was pretty downcast now, even the smaller children understood the full gravity of the situation.

So with a sinking feeling, Dean and Cas walked up to their lockers after the break, and like a grim reminder of what was to come in just a few minutes, Alistair walked past them towards his classroom.

“That’s the teacher?” asked Cas as soon as Alistair was gone.

“Yeah, that’s him, alright.”

“He looks like someone who likes to make people suffer, one way or another.”

“Well, he makes me suffer, that’s for sure. The others seem to enjoy his shitty class more than me though.”

Cas opened his locker, still filled with all kinds of stuff and Dean found himself fascinated again, distracted from his pressing concerns.

“Dude, seriously. Why have you got all that stuff in your locker?”

“I’ll tell you after your class, so you’ve got something to wonder about and distract yourself from the torture session.” He had picked up Meg’s expression for it over lunch.

He rummaged a bit while Dean tried to get a glimpse of everything that was in there.

“Hey, Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe it’s not a good idea that we’re going to that movie together.”

Dean felt as if someone had punched him in the face.

“Why? Don‘t you want to?” The thought alone made him feel like knives were cutting through him.

“I do. It’s just… Maybe Alistair shouldn’t know that we’re hanging out together, he might use it against you, one way or another. So I might have to get scarce while you‘re… excitable, he might get you angry when he makes a snarky remark about me. I read that alpha rut also breaks out when you‘re really angry,” he ended, but it seemed like he had wanted to say something else.

“If that’s the only reason, then that doesn’t matter. He could make a remark about all of my family and friends and I‘d bite. If you wanna hang out, we’ll hang out. Screw Alistair.”

“All right then,” Cas flashed him another short smile, making Dean hazy again.

“Cactus!” He barked out.

“What?”

“Gotta focus on the cactus. See you then,” he ran off, trying hard to tell himself that the deep chuckle behind him wasn’t affecting him in any way.

 

“My adoptive parents are really nosy, and I don’t like them to go through all my stuff.” Cas told him after edu.

“That’s it? Kinda anticlimactic, when you think about it.”

“Yeah, well. That’s not all. Can I tell you something, if you promise not to tell another soul?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.” Dean did the motion. “And anyway, who besides my family and Meg could I possibly tell? In case you hadn‘t noticed, we‘re kinda the outcasts around here.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

They walked out of the school, towards the rest of Dean’s family, already waiting for their bus. Their pack was so large that it was easier to take the bus than to squash themselves into one car to get to school.

“Anyway,” Cas spoke up. “I guess it’s because I’m not a real pack member of my family.”

“Yeah, the gossip had been going pretty strong around here when people heard you’re adopted. What happened?”

“I only know what my mother, I mean my adoptive mother, told me. My birth parents died when I was just a new born pup and they, Naomi and Zachariah, were unable to breed on their own, so they went to all kinds of orphanages, sniffing out a pup they could adopt. You know it’s not easy to let a bond form with an orphan? The smell has to be just right.”

“And was it?”

“Not so much. But they liked me and took me on. The bond didn’t form though, or only in a small amount. You should come by sometime and smell for yourself.”

Dean’s heart went about two paces faster, when he thought about visiting Cas at his home, preferably while they were on their own.

“Yeah, could be fun.”

“Anyway, I like to have my favourite possessions close, so that if the bond or the poor excuse of one breaks, I can just grab everything.”

“You reckon they’d throw you out?”

“No, but I would leave.”

“Wow, Cas. That sounds like an awful situation for you.”

Cas just shrugged.

Dean thought about this for a while, waving at Charlie who seemed almost obscenely happy to see her brother. Accompanied by Cas, no less.

“Hey, uh… If you wanna dump some of your stuff over at mine, you could do that.” He had noticed how Cas had been struggling to close the door of his locker whenever he tried to get something out. “ ‘Sides, I think your cactus could use some sunlight now and then, huh?”

“Would it really be ok if I take you up on that offer?”

“It’s no trouble, we got heaps of space. Tell you what, next Thursday, we carry your stuff over before the movie and then I can show you where I live too, sound good?”

“Yes, Dean. That does sound good.”

Dean had to admit, he liked the way Cas used his name so often.

They had reached the bus now and everyone welcomed them. Dean was proud of his family who had taken a liking to Cas so quickly that it was almost like he had been with them the entire time and not only two days. He felt disappointed when their bus came up and everyone pulled Meg and Cas into short hugs (nothing like the intense one from last night) and the Winchesters waved at Meg and Cas while they had to wait for their own bus to arrive.

“So, what happened after lunch?” Jo sat next to Dean, the little ones in front of them, Sammy arguing with Charlie about who their favourite Star Trek character was, Jodie and Josie listening to a cassette tape, probably by the Backstreet boys again, turning the headphones awkwardly, so they could both hear something.

“Alistair was a douche, but what’s new about that?”

“Not that, dumbo.”

“Oh you mean with Cas, you know, because it’s totally your business and all that?”

“Don’t be like that, asshat.”

Dean shrugged. “I dunno, we talked. About his family and why he has all that stuff in his locker. And um, he may have invited me to his place and I told him he should come over before the movie next week. And for once I managed not to make a complete idiot of myself around him.”

Jo grinned like she had last night, clapping Dean on the back. “Well done you, Loverboy-chester.”

“Will you quit it?”

“Where would be the fun in that?”

“It would give me some peace for once.”

They were silent for a few minutes, listening to Charlie choosing Spock, like always, and Sammy ending up with liking Bones the most, again like always. After that the argument subsided and Charlie laid her head on Sammy’s shoulder, yawning and pointing out a dog to them that was jumping around the front yard of a house they passed. Peace had been restored in the galactic federation once more.

Dean smiled fondly, sharing a look with Jo who apparently wasn’t yet done with the topic.

“You know, last night when you came back from that epic hug you guys shared, you had just the same expression? You like him, don’t you? Like ‘like’ him?”

“Yeah, I do.” He admitted, and when he had already gotten that far, he could also tell her the rest.

“I really do. But it’s kinda really bad timing now, with the you-know-what.” He alluded to his little problem.

“Damn, yeah you’re right.” Jo thought about it for a while. “Hey, um… how long do the meds need to work? Like would they work better if you took them during lunch and then go into edu? And like maybe not use any on the weekends to save them? I mean the biggest problem you‘re faced with is the time during alpha-edu, right?”

Dean thought about it and came to the conclusion that Jo had to be right. “Now I remembered why I like you, squirt.”

“Anytime, stretch.”

 

Just to be safe, Dean asked Eleanor over the phone if that schedule would provide enough protection if they amended it like that. She had to admit, she wasn’t sure, but it was worth a shot anyway.

It worked rather well. Dean took the medication before his classes and tried to think of something else most of the time. During the next week, he visited Cas’ place and smelled the mere traces of a familiar bond between him and his adoptive parents. They were nice enough people, even though Zach was a little pompous sometimes. It rather felt more like acquaintances living together, like Cas had a couple of much older roommates.

They continued having lunch together and Dean felt so at home that their table was filled with roaring laughter and his crippling inability to talk to Cas without embarrassing himself dissolved slowly, making it easier all around.

Though sometimes, when it was just the two of them, Dean was simply overwhelmed by Cas. The next Thursday, meaning their movie night, was no exception. Cas had taken the bus with them and had fit right in, just like at lunch, while Jo gave up her standard seat next to Dean and squeezed in with the twins, breaking out her most priced possession, a game boy. She was playing Legends of Zelda, while Charlie and Sam leaned over the seats to watch and Charlie gave so many tips that she essentially played the game more than Jo did.

Dean and Cas talked, while everyone was focused on the game, about everything they could think of. Their heads leaned towards each other, and were also sitting really close together, their thighs tightly pressed against each other. They both had a cardboard with the stuff from Cas’ locker next to them. Obviously they could have put the boxes onto another seat, the bus wasn’t full by far, but in silent agreement, they hadn’t done that but chose to squeeze close.

They were so intently focused on their conversation, that neither of them noticed until they paused for a minute and looked out of the window, that their fingers had been intertwined ever since they sat down.

Cas looked at their hands, pressing firmly and flashing Dean a fond smile. The embarrassment that started to rise in Dean was blown right away through Cas’ smile and he pressed his hand back.

They kept their hands locked after the quiet exchange, even when people got off the bus, giving them cheeky looks. Randy, the boy with the disgracing toilet moment, was among them and cast them a pretty dirty look when he got off.

When they reached home, Dean showed Cas around, starting with their house, introducing him to his mom. Then they went over to Bobby and Crowley’s house. The twins near went nuts over who would show Cas around their house, pulling at both his arms, while Cas good-naturedly indulged them. The tour ended in the kitchen, and the adjourning office, where Crowley was making phone calls to auto dealers, trying to hash out the best possible deal.

“Who is this good-looking young stud that you got there, Deany Wheeny Winchester?”

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jose, Jode, your dad is annoying me. Please take care of him while I introduce Cas to your one parent who isn’t embarrassing.”

“Ay, captain.” They saluted him and made sure Crowley stayed seated, and didn’t follow them to the garage. Both wore stern expressions on their little faces that were almost identical, minus the different hair colour.

They found Bobby buried under a hood, grease spilling out of the motor for no apparent reason. When Dean greeted him, he peeked up and gave them a grin, wiping his dirty hands on a rag, reaching one hand out to Cas.

“So, this is him? They one who stole my boy’s heart?”

Dean flushed and wished the earth would swallow him. “Thanks, Bobby. I can see now why Crowley and you are such a good fit.”

“Boohoo, princess. I’m the one who has to put up with listening to stories about this ‘Cas’ for the past week, so I get to annoy you too now. Here,” he threw Dean the wrench. “Cas and I will go make some sandwiches. Gotta have to make sure you‘re good enough for Dean.” He smiled at Cas, already prepared to like him while Dean huffed out an exasperated sigh.

He spoke up: “Bobby, Cas and I had plans to go grab a burger or something, don’t hassle him like that,” while Cas almost at the same time said: “I look forward to our talk, Mr. Singer.”

“Please, son. Call me Bobby,” he said, ignoring Dean’s protest. “Kitchen’s that way,” he pointed and him and Cas walked towards the exit of the garage.

“Hey, what about me?” Dean yelled. “Why can’t I help make the sandwiches too?”

“Because you gotta fix the car, or you won’t get something to eat, ye idjit.”

 

Dean was still grumbling by the time Bobby and Cas got back, chuckling under their breaths about something that Dean hoped hadn’t been about him.

“Finished, boy?” Bobby spoke up.

“Yeah yeah,” Dean said, wiping grease from his hands and sighing when he saw a stain on his shirt as well.

“You missed a spot,” Cas said and took the rag from his hands to wipe over a spot on his cheek, making Dean blush scarlet.

Bobby checked under the hood. “Yeah, you really did fix the problem. Good job, son. You earned your sandwich. Tell you what, why don’t you and Cas over here go upstairs. You can show him the apartment and eat there. I just remembered that I need to fix Mr. Pickett’s car until tomorrow too, so I can’t go slacking off now.”

“Yeah, ok. See you later, Bobby.” And he led Cas up the stairs.

“That’s a nice little apartment here, do you keep this for visitors?” Cas asked once Dean had opened the door.

“Yeah, that and more. Mom, Sammy and I moved in here for a while, when Charlie wasn’t even born yet and for a few months after.” Dean sighed and stopped talking while Cas checked out the small toilet and the bedroom with the old beds and cheap crib in it.

He turned towards Dean and frowned a little. “Is there more to the story?”

“Yeah, you could say that.” He pulled Cas’ chair out from the table. “Sit and eat. I’ll tell you.”

Somehow, while Dean told Cas of the circumstances that had brought him and his family here, and how one member of their family hadn’t moved in with them after the events, Cas’ hand found his own again, a warm steady weight pressing against his palm.

 

From then on it seemed like whenever they felt like it, they were holding hands. Dean didn’t even have to get over his shyness while they watched the movie that evening. They sat down onto the loveseat without even having to discuss it and Dean just took Cas’ hand again and held it throughout the movie. They shared another epic hug when he brought him home, still not really finding the courage to move the two inches between their faces and kiss.

The next day, Dean decided that he liked his family after all when Meg and Cas came in late from omega-edu, and nobody breathed a word about the giant elephant in the room when Cas interlaced their fingers as soon as he sat down. Charlie only made a remark that he could be happy that he was ambidextrous, when Dean had to continue eating with his left hand and Jo just went on telling them about her plans to go to the theme park on the weekend and how Dean still had to use the voucher that Meg had gotten him for his birthday.

“That sounds great Jo,” Dean said bitterly, for two reasons. One: he didn’t wanna go on a rollercoaster, two: he would not take meds over the weekend.  
“But I can’t go. But you can all go together, y’know, Cas can just use my voucher.”

“No no no, Deano. You’re not getting out of this one. We’ll put this trip off until your hormones are all safely tucked away again,” Meg said curtly.

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“But honestly, guys. You should do something on the weekend. I’m the only one who has to stay cooped up in case I’m rutting.”

“Tell you what,” said Sammy. “You can’t use Meg’s voucher, but how about mine? Let’s build a tree house this weekend, and we’ll just do it together. That way you’re still close enough to home, so if anything happens you can just go, but wouldn’t be completely alone.”

“Great idea, Sammy. Let’s all do that together, that way you can’t blame me if you can‘t read the instruction manual like always.”

“Once, Dean. It happened once.”

“Charlie?” Dean asked, wanting her to back him up.

“Sorry, Sammy. But Dean is right.”

“You always take his side.”

“No I don’t.”

“He’s your favourite brother, you can just say it.”

“Well, he likes Spock best as well, so he‘s naturally cooler than you, Sammykins,” Charlie huffed and everyone at the table groaned. Sammy and Charlie were never gonna see eye to eye about this question.

 

Around midday on Saturday, Dean didn’t take any meds while everyone was having lunch. Jo³, Sammy, Charlie, Meg and Cas were all stuffing themselves with sandwiches to have strength to build the tree house. Because they were such a big group, it was finished in record time and so big that it could hold the four smaller ones easily, while Dean, Cas, Jo and Meg remained on the ground for now, lounging around on a picnic blanket. Meg and Jo lay on their bellies with Jo teaching Meg how to weave daisy crowns while Cas and Dean stared straight up into the sky, trying to decipher formations of clouds, feeling nice and warm even though it was still relatively early in the year.

“Look, this one looks like an angel,” said Cas, pointing at a formation that looked like it had wings.

“You mean it looks like you?” Dean asked and mentally shook his own hand for his, at last found, smoothness.

Cas turned to him, smiling that little smile of his and quite naturally interlaced their fingers again.

Dean breathed deeply, trying to figure out how his very insufficiently suppressed hormones felt about that. He felt good, a little too warm maybe, but good. Speaking of hormones…

“Hey, Cas?”

“Hmm?” Cas hummed, deep in his chest.

“I don’t mean to pry or anything, but how come you don’t smell?”

“Because I wash, Dean.”

Dean shoved him a little, scooting closer on the blanket to reach him and turned to his side to glare at him.

“Hilarious, Cas. You know what I mean.”

Cas looked up and turned onto his side as well, their faces very close together, too close for Dean’s comfort.

“Yes, I know. I take a combination of medications, to eliminate all the personalised layers of my smell. It makes things a lot easier.”

“Yeah, like in that bathroom when they didn’t really go for you.”

“Yes, that’s the reason. If alphas can’t smell my personal scent or anything hormone related than it’s easier to go about unscathed.”

“What kinds of meds do you take?”

“Oh, suppress-ex, hormone block and omega-cleanse.”

“How do you come by that stuff? Everything but suppress-ex is illegal.”

“My mother gets it to me, and it’s only illegal in our country. She ships it in from overseas.”

“That’s a lotta work to go through just to stop smelling.”

“Yeah well, I don’t want to mate and much less I want to be forced to mate.”

Dean didn’t know what to say to that, disappointment and hurt creeping up on him.

“Oh ok,” and he let go of Cas‘ hand, a sting in his eyes as he looked up at the sky again.

“Oh look at that one, it looks like a squid,” he said, proud of himself because his voice didn’t break.

“Dean,” Cas took his hand back without any reserve and waited until Dean turned to him again. He looked at him, his eyes treacherously wet as well and sighed.

“Dean, they don’t let mated omegas into university.”

“Oh yeah, right.” Dean knew that, obviously. He hadn’t known that Cas wanted to study, but it made sense. He was more educated than most other omegas already, it was only logical that he’d strive for more now that he almost had his high school degree.

“That’s the reason,” Cas nodded, seeing the thought process clearly written on Dean’s face.

“What do you wanna be?”

Dean knew that Omegas could only apply to a very limited amount of universities, to an even more limited amount of courses. They also had to wait with applying until they had actually had their high school diploma in their hands, because who would guarantee to the admission offices that the omega was still entitled to inscribe themselves, meaning still being unmated, by the time they graduated?

The courses were down to omega medicine, omega education, omega psychology, kindergartening (which Missouri had done back in her day), and omega concubine. The last one was what Ruby had applied to after high school, where she had only completed one semester until she finally sported a mating bite and abandoned college all together. There were also certain higher omega schools, which offered courses to be nurses, secretaries, gardening and home education.

Once there had been a course of omega law, where omegas were studying how to defend their kind in court, but it hadn’t sat well with people and had been banned by law for longer than anyone alive could remember.

 

“I wanna be a doctor,” Cas said now. Omega medicine, which apart from omega psychology, was the most complex and lengthy study he could possibly choose.

“That means 4 years of general degree and then another 3 of master, right?”

“Yes, and then I have to intern at a hospital for years, but once I finished studying, they can’t get me out of there anymore. Most residents at a hospital get mated as soon as they can.”

“So,” Dean said haltingly, “you wanna stay unmated for all that time?”

“I don’t see that I’ve got any other choice,” Cas said, his eyes were watery again, “but right now, I’m thinking I might not go after all.” His gaze was intently focused on Dean again.

“Why is that?” Dean asked, his heart beating rapidly.

Cas just continued to stare into Dean’s eyes and slowly laid his hand on the side of his face, brushing over his cheekbone lightly, causing Dean‘s heart to race away even faster in his chest.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Cas flashed him another smile, which Dean couldn’t really appreciate because he was definitely too hot now, flushed and sweaty.

“Cas,” he croaked. “I can’t. I gotta go inside now.” He felt something stir inside himself, something that had to be taken away and locked tightly inside his bedroom.

“Dean?”, now Cas looked hurt and really upset. Dean felt like an asshole because Cas had practically just confessed his feelings for him, told him that he was conflicted about staying unmated in order to go to college and Dean’s freakin’ biology decided to act up right that second.

“Cas, I can’t stay. Please don’t be mad,” and he raced off towards the house, his oncoming rut the strongest he had yet to live through because it had been dormant for almost three months to the day.

 

His rut went on for the rest of the weekend, leaving him dehydrated and moody. He barked at his brother and sister over breakfast Monday morning and took his first meds after the weekend early to get through the day at school.

When they got in to lunch, Meg and Cas were already sitting at their table. Omega edu hadn’t taken as long as usual, and Cas seemed happy enough, but Dean saw a flicker of hurt ghost over his face when he came in and sat down next to him. Neither of them wanted to hold hands today and they just held onto their plates while they ate.

Cas didn’t say anything about it over lunch and they both kept quiet while they walked to their lockers. Dean hated the silence but he knew Cas was waiting for him to start talking.

He looked fondly into Cas’ nearly empty locker, knowing that his most priced possessions were now at his place, and found the courage to start the overdue conversation.

“Cas?”

“Hmm?” Cas hummed, rummaging in his locker.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t stay or say anything on Saturday. It’s just… what you told me… it triggered a rut. I didn‘t mean to just run off like that.”

“Yes, Dean. I figured that after a while.”

“So you’re not mad at me?”

“No,” he said and took out another book.

  
“That’s good. Because I wanted to tell you that I wish you wouldn’t need to stay unmated to get into college,” and he took Cas’ hand again, finally feeling his skin against his own again. “You have no idea how much I wished that,” he said quietly and pulled at Cas so that their foreheads pressed against each other.

Without another thought they draped their arms around each other again like during the first hug they ever shared and didn’t let go of each other until the bell rang when they reluctantly detached themselves and went into their next class. When Dean cast one last glance at Cas, he didn’t look hurt or distant anymore.

 

“Hello, Dean. Fancy seeing you here,” grinned Alistair when Dean came in.

“Sir,” he quipped and went to his seat, his whole head filled with Cas.

“Well, Dean since you’re here now, I can tell you that today we’ll watch something special. A little bird told me that you have quite the love story going on, right?”

Dean caught Randy grinning at him and just knew who had told Alistair.

“Today I’ll get you, son,” said Alistair and put a video into the recorder, which brought on Dean’s final fall.

And to his horror, the video starred an omega with dark brown hair and clear blue eyes. The content wasn’t as appalling as usual either, yet it was still predictable.

The omega was in his home, when a new alpha neighbour came over to introduce himself to the neighbourhood.

Things took the turn they always took in Alistair’s videos, but Dean couldn’t keep calm this time and he couldn’t look away. When the omega wanted to give the new neighbour a glass of juice, he spilled it over himself and just started to pull his shirt off to rub it out immediately. Then the alpha got up behind him and stroked his back lightly.

“What a beautiful neighbour I have. How come I am so lucky?” and the alpha turned the omega around to press a kiss to his lips, also not usual in Alistair’s videos. Mostly the actors just went straight to town on each other.

Dean felt the blood rushing through his body and to his horror, he felt himself harden in his pants. He opened his mouth and drew in a hissing breath when the alpha in the video said: “What a gorgeous mouth you have, omega. I bet it would look good stretched around my cock. Get down on your knees and suck it.”

When the omega willingly did and kept eye contact with the alpha inside his throat Dean was almost losing it.

“Excuse me, Sir. I need to go to the bathroom.”

Alistair had victory in his eyes, but said: “No, Dean. Don’t go yet, you’ll miss the rest of the show,” and he nodded towards Randy who got up and stood behind Dean’s chair, to prevent him from storming off.

Dean felt trapped, he knew it couldn’t be long until he would break and he had no way of escape.

Meanwhile, things on the screen had gotten more heated than before. The omega had pulled off the alpha’s cock and had pushed down his trousers, exposing his wide open hole, ready for the taking. He got on his hands and knees so the alpha could test his rim with his fingers, and then pushed his slick cock inside, while the omega moaned lustfully.

“Such a nice bitch for me, so welcoming.” The alpha complimented the omega, while Dean pressed the root of his hand into his crotch. He didn’t care anymore about the students seeing what he did, he wanted to keep himself from popping at all costs, praying that his pheromones remained muffled enough by the chemicals in his veins.

The omega on screen just writhed back and forth on the alpha’s cock inside him, making all kind of little deep moans which made Dean throb.

“Yeah, you like that, don’t you? Bet if I fucked you like this for longer, you’d let me knot you, ay? I might even bite you, you pretty thing.”

Dean let out a whimper as the alpha took the omega up by his arms and they lapped their tongues together while the alpha continued to fuck him from behind, the omega’s unusually long and thick erection twitching precome onto the kitchen floor.

“Yes, alpha. I want it. Give me your knot. Need to be filled by you,” and when Dean saw the alpha’s knot forming at the base of his cock, he felt his own knot popping, the pressure of his hand couldn‘t stop it anymore.

Dean just knew that the suppressants weren’t working anymore, because the second his arousal hit the air, he saw his fellow students eye him very hungrily, growling deep inside their chests.

Nothing was worse than Alistair, though. While the knot of the alpha on camera caught inside his omega and he bit into he base of his neck, his teachers eyes practically burned holes inside Dean’s clothes.

This gaze said plain as day that Dean would be bend over the desk and forced to take them all in nothing short of a moment. From the smirk that contorted Alistair’s face even more than usual, he knew who would be the first to rape him.

“Seems like we got a bitch in our midst, doesn’t it, boys?” Alistair said in that sonorous voice of his. “Randy, get him up here, while the rest of you form an orderly line. Looks like we’re all getting our knots out today.”

Randy manhandled Dean out of his chair and no matter how much he kicked and screamed, he couldn’t get loose from the other boy. He held onto every table and chair on the way to the teacher’s desk and brought most of them down with ear shattering clutter, screaming his lungs out while the other alphas growled aggressively because the bitch wasn‘t willing.

At long last, Alistair took over, ripping Dean up by the arms and slamming him onto the his desk with force. He held him in a chokehold while he kicked Randy off, who held onto Dean‘s legs, trying to tuck him towards himself, while Dean could feel Alistair’s crotch press hot and disgusting against his rear.

“Back off,” Alistair snarled viciously. “I get the first fuck. You’re on after me. If you don’t let go of the bitch, I’ll tear your fucking knot off.”

Randy let go of Dean, then. Backing away and getting first in line. Dean could see that most alphas already palmed their erections while Alistair pressed his face onto the table now.

“Finally got you, didn’t I? Who’d know you had such a nice smell about you? I gotta test you, boy. See if you’re really not a needy omega whore.” He fumbled at Dean’s belt, determined to get it open when the door in turn opened.

Dean could see lots of people looking in from the hall, mostly betas and omegas who had come out of their classrooms because they had heard the racket. They didn’t come in though, too scared of the room full of alphas, leaving Dean alone with his aggressors.

He could see Cas making his way through the crowd of cowards walking into the room against his own safety. It distracted the assembled alphas who started humming way down deep inside their throats and Dean’s hormone fused brain responded with a ferocious growl directed at them when they went for Cas instead.

The alphas gave a short yelp at Dean’s growl and suddenly he felt much stronger than before. They were threatening Cas here, he couldn’t let them do that.

With a lunge against Alistair, he threw him off, Alistair crashing against the nearest desk and Dean snarled at the alphas who were pulling at Cas now.

Suddenly, they stopped. They sniffed the air and then gave disgusted yelps, looking at Dean.

“What in the seven hells?” Alistair uprighted himself again and closed his nose with a disgusted face. “You stink, Winchester.”

Dean looked around the assembly, every alpha pinched his nose and nobody smelled like arousal anymore.

“I think, we’ll dismiss the class early today to get away from Winchester’s stench,” said Alistair more nasally then ever and the alphas practically fled the room, the timid crowd outside pressing out of the way to avoid them.

Only Dean and Cas were left inside the room. “Do I really smell that bad?”

“No, Dean. Just different. Any way, let’s be glad about this, because it made them stop.”

“Yeah, it must have been mating hormones or something.” He ran over to Cas and pressed the older boy close to his chest. “I couldn’t let them hurt you.”

“I couldn’t let them hurt you, either. I feared I was too late when I heard the noise. I shouldn‘t have let you go in here, not with what we said to each other before.”

“You almost were. You almost were too late. But it‘s all good, you‘re fine, I‘m fine,” he tried to calm them both, though their hearts were still racing from fear and the angry urge to protect each other.

They hugged each other again, glad that nothing worse had happened while the on lookers got back to their classrooms, a general whisper being heard on the corridor until all doors had closed again.

“Dean, how are you?” Cas asked quietly into his ear, once they didn‘t feel the rapid pumping of their hearts anymore and their breaths were normal again.

“You mean besides all of this here?” Dean asked in turn, meaning the destroyed classroom and the assault.

“Yes. How are you otherwise?”

“I’m happy.”

“Really?”

“Well, you’re with me. That makes me happy.” Dean played with the hair on the base of Cas’ neck.

“I’m glad. Because I am too,” said Cas and pressed a kiss to Dean’s temple.


	7. It was the best of times, It was the worst of times

Dean and Cas

 

The day Cas entered alpha education he had been fearless, his only thought had been to get to Dean before something bad happened to him, even against his own safety.

Dean told them that everyone in alpha education left him in peace now. They didn’t tease him any more and Alistair didn’t try to provoke Dean’s popping anymore.  
And to add to the good news, he heard that in his next year, Alistair wouldn’t be his teacher anymore. He had only jumped in as a substitute for the higher class until they found a replacement who’d start immediately on the first day of the next year.

The worst things that happened were that everyone with only the exception of their lunch table now picked on Dean and told him that he stank, the tale having spread to everyone in the school overnight. The betas and few omegas didn’t bully him as much as the alphas did, they mostly did it to satisfy the rampaging alphas, who were vicious in their verbal abuse.

Dean only laughed about all their comments, but they knew that deep within, he was sad. The people of Lawrence had always picked on their pack, there wasn’t a day that passed by without one of his family and friends having to deal with exclusion, but as long as they had themselves, it never was that bad. Yet, in the month that followed the alpha edu incident, Dean seemed downcast whenever they neared the school, only living up during lunch and when him and Cas were talking in front of their lockers.

When they were outside of the school, they all were happier. These days, they grew together even more closely, Meg and Cas took the same bus as the rest of them and spent their days with the pack. Meg also spent most of her nights at Jo’s, but Cas went home every night.

The minutes that Dean and Cas spent alone in the car were always the highlight of their days. They were by themselves, but didn’t have to address the pressing questions about what would happen with their mutual crush, because they were in transit and it didn‘t seem like the time and place to talk about it. Moving from one place to another always kept them grounded and just enjoying the moment of closeness without pressure as Dean drove and Cas slowly learned to hum and sing a few of Dean’s favourite songs. At the end of each drive, they hugged, held the other close for at least a minute and lightly stroked each others backs.

Dean had had to endure two more weeks of insufficient rut-suppress and Cas had pulled back a little to not trigger him, but it hadn’t helped. When Cas visited on the weekends, a touch to Dean’s shoulder or a light touch to a smudge of grease on his upper arm had triggered a rut.

When the whole pack was playing pool in teams, Dean couldn’t continue because when he handed Cas’ the queue, he touched him instead of the queue and immediately rutted. Ellen and Jo had won the game for the first time ever, to the surprise of anyone, because it was always either Dean‘s or Bobby‘s team who won.

 

A few weeks later, Richard had finally gotten out of the hospital bed and back into the operating room, and Missouri gave a quick party for the occasion. Only a day later, Eleanor came over and presented Dean with the sorely missed rut-suppress. Things were good after that, he didn’t need to stay away from the others and especially Cas after his dosage had been upped again and when May came, they finally took their trip to the theme park.

Dean felt light-headed the whole day, he didn’t know whether he could blame the roller coasters or Cas for it, because Cas was determined to stay close to him, now that he finally could without fear of Dean doing something he’d regret later. While they waited in line for the scariest roller coaster Dean had ever seen, Meg excitedly bouncing next to them, Cas had held him close, his arm around his waist and the other stroking lightly from his collarbone to his chest muscles. All done with the excuse to calm him down, when it did anything but that for him.

They were happy in the knowledge of what they felt for each other, showing it to the other by small gestures and touches like these, but hadn’t addressed the question how they would handle the situation in the longer run. What could they do and what would happen when Cas’ graduation and his applications to college rolled around? For now, they continued to avoid the question and just lived in the moment.

The first time Dean had kissed Cas, was in Rufus’ cinema. Dean couldn’t even remember which movie they saw because he was so intently focused on manning up to it. He shifted on his seat nervously, Cas turned to look what was wrong and Dean had lost his head and just pressed his lips to Cas’ for a second.

They had both blushed furiously, but had just continued to hold hands and stare at the screen without catching a single word spoken in the movie afterwards. They hadn’t talked about the kiss, but when Cas had visited on the following Saturday and watched Dean and Bobby work in the garage again, they both couldn’t get the thought of kissing the other out of their heads.

Lunch brought them to the granny flat again where Dean wolfed down his sandwich with great appetite, while Cas was more focused on watching Dean eat than eating his own food.

“What?” Dean had asked, with his mouth full.

“Oh nothing, I just never realised how cute you look when you eat your food so eagerly.”

“I’m not cute,” said Dean with a blush and a mouth full of sandwich that made his cheeks bulge out.

“Kindly allow me to be the judge of that Dean,” Cas said with a gleam in his eyes.

Dean just shrugged it off and continued to eat with indecent enthusiasm. After he had finished, he eyed Cas’ half eaten sandwich.

“You’re not gonna finish yours?” and Cas slid his plate over without another thought.

“Thanks, Cas.”

After Dean had finished both sandwiches, he stretched and yawned, looking into the bedroom longingly.

“Man, I could use a nap. Fixing cars all morning made me super tired.”

“Yeah that and your very big lunch,” Cas teased.

“Be nice. You like me, remember?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Wanna take a nap with me?”

Cas gulped in terror. This was widely different from the Cas who had bravely walked into alpha edu to safe him. He looked like a deer in headlights, downing his limo in one go, his eyes big and scared. Omega education apparently put the fear of the brutality of alpha knotting inside you at all times, Dean thought.

He traced Cas’ fingers with his own soothingly. “Dude, relax. I’m not gonna jump you. I just want to have you near me.”

“Ok,” Cas said and relaxed visibly.

They curled onto the bed together, Dean threw his arm around Cas’ waist, Cas laid a hand gently on Dean’s right shoulder and they watched each other in the early afternoon light that shone in through the windows until their eyes drooped shut.

 

When Cas woke up, the shadow of the afternoon had lengthened and Dean was still sound asleep next to him. He had to admit to himself that he had never felt more at home than right now, and why was he to deny himself from being with Dean for good? Who cared if he never got a degree, would it really matter if he was with Dean and did not go to college?

He turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling, thinking more about it.

A few minutes later, Dean stirred against him and tightened his grip around his middle, trying to get Cas’ body closer again. Cas let himself be turned around and Dean muttered sleepily: “Morning Cas,” and smiled to himself with closed eyes.

Cas smiled as well. He’d only have to extend his hand and Dean would be his. He’d never have to wake up again without hearing those words. He longed for Dean and he knew Dean longed for him as well, he wouldn’t have kissed him otherwise.

Cas gave it another few seconds contemplation before the pressed his lips to Dean’s with firm intent. “Good morning, Dean.”

Dean ripped open his eyes now, first Cas saw shock on his face, then he saw joy.

“What a nice way to wake me up,” Dean smirked, “but I was half asleep just now and I‘m not sure that qualifies as a proper kiss. Could you do that again?”

“Yes,” he said and brought his lips closer to Dean’s again, staring intently at him before he pressed their lips together, longer this time.

They felt butterflies and little pangs explode in their stomachs while they kissed, slowly starting to do more than just press their lips together, Dean opened his mouth and experimentally pulled a little on Cas’ bottom lip, causing Cas to arch into him, and to open his mouth as well.

A soft gasp was heard when the tips of their tongues touched and they both opened their eyes at the sudden sensation. Cas pressed against Dean’s tongue a little and then with a gaze telling each other that they liked it, they continued to play with each other’s tongue for a long while.

This was great, Cas decided. He loved doing this and he wanted more. His hands crept down Dean’s arm to come to rest on his hips to pull him flush against his body. There was no sense at all to deny himself this, this was worth it.

“Cas,” Dean gasped, gripping the flesh above his hips, his fingers sneaking under his t-shirt, and Cas’ brain stopped working. He pulled Dean up, the younger boy was still a little smaller than him and continued to kiss him while Dean adjusted to his new position on top of him.

“Dean,” Cas moaned when Dean pressed his lips to his jaw without thinking, working his way down his neck, kissing and teasing his skin with the tip of his tongue. Alpha edu had been good for something after all, he thought, when Cas moaned under him and arched his back up where Dean’s hands where massaging his sides.

Cas could feel the heat of Dean’s crotch above his own and he needed this more than anything else in his life.

“Dean, I want you,” he admitted and went on to caress Dean’s shoulder blades underneath his shirt, angling his head up to catch Dean’s mouth again.

“I know, Cas. I want you too. But we can’t,” Dean held Cas’ hands now, interlacing their fingers like they had done so often and stilled on him.

“But Dean-” Cas started but Dean interrupted him.

“Baby,” he used the pet name for the first time, “please believe me. There is nothing in this world I want more than you. I want to you be my mate, and I wanna be yours. But if we do this now, if we wake up tomorrow and we’re mated, you won’t finish school and can never go to college. I couldn’t live with that. And deep down you know you couldn’t either. You’d hate me in twenty years. It would be because of me that you never got to do the things you wanted to do.”

“I could never hate you, Dean.” Cas looked up with a vulnerability in his gaze that was new to him. He didn’t want to get hurt, to be rejected, but he also didn’t want Dean to do something that he thought would make them unhappy in the long run.

“You don’t know that,” Dean pressed out and rolled off Cas’ body, leaving him yearning for his touch again, and by the way Dean’s knuckles tightened around his, he knew that Dean longed to be close to him as much as he did.

“But, Dean. It’s not fair of me to make you wait for over 7 years before we can get mated.”

“I know it’s not fair, baby. And it’s not you who’s making me wait. It’s the laws which make the both of us wait.”

Cas had to see that Dean was right. They wanted each other, they were sure they wanted to be together, but they couldn’t because some stupid old alpha president had decided against it.

“Are you sure about this? Do you really wanna wait that long? Maybe you could find someone else.” The thought had Cas throat itching as if razorblades had been shoved into it.

“Fat chance of that, Cas. Just a few minutes ago we were on our way to being mated, do you really think I would ever wanna do that with someone else?”

“Most alphas do,” announced Cas downcast.

“Yeah well, I’m not your typical alpha. I’m your alpha.” He kissed Cas again, without any heat to it. “And if you want, we can just say that you’re my mate now, I don’t care about the claiming ritual. If you want me, I’m yours. With or without a bite.”

“I do.” Cas said the old words of a time long past when mating had been about more than just biting someone in the heat of passion.

“Ah, Cas. If you say that we’re gonna have to go more official-like about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come with me.” Dean pulled Cas up and ran around on the whole property, drumming his pack together until they stood, confusedly, underneath the tree house in the Winchester’s back yard.

Dean grinned at them. Ellen, Jo and Meg. Bobby, Crowley and the twins. Mary, Sammy and Charlie. He began to speak.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to announce the union of Dean Winchester, a.k.a. me, and Castiel Novak, a.k.a. you,” he pointed at Cas, “to be joined in holy matrimony. I pledge myself to you, Cas, in sickness and in health, through the good times and the bad times and with or without a mating bite. I take you, to be mine until we pass away into the next world.” It maybe wasn’t how the classic wedding vows went, but close enough, Dean figured.

Cas spoke up, not the only one with a tear in his eye now. “And I, Cas Novak, pledge myself to you, Dean, in sickness and in health, through the good times and the bad times, with or without a mating bite. I take you, to be mine,” his breath hitched. “Until we pass away into the next world.”

“And with the power of the eldest pack member,” Bobby spoke up with two tear traces on his face, “I now declare you, in the presence of all our beloved witnesses, to be mates.” He took their hands and laid them together. “You may kiss.”

And so, Dean Winchester and Cas Novak married each other the traditional way, the way which had little to no credibility in this world, both with tousled hair from their nap time and in Dean’s case perpetually dirty with engine grease, to tell each other that they would wait for the other for as long as need be.

Cas would go away to college after the summer and study to be a doctor, sure in the knowledge that when he finished studying, Dean would sweep him up into his arms and they were gonna be mates forever. However many miles would part them, they wouldn’t let go of each other because they knew beyond a doubt that they belonged together.

Sam

For the next few weeks, I saw little of my brother and Cas. They were keeping pretty much to themselves and none of us others minded. They were gonna be separated soon enough and everyone was sad to see Cas go.

Our pack grew after Dean and Cas had their ceremony. Cas’ weak bond with his family had completely broken after Dean and him had said that they were gonna be mates one day. Cas didn’t seem unhappy about it. He moved into our old apartment over the garage and Dean and him were cooped up there often, for hours by themselves, but we were ok with that. Mom said that that was what happened with newly weds.

Meg finally joined our pack too. We hadn’t known that that could happen, we didn’t even know Meg could rip away her pack bond. It had happened, when Meg’s mother had found a college leaflet under her bed. Since Meg was in Dean’s year and still had three years of school left, her mother freaked when she found out that Meg had plans for the future. Plans that required her to still be unmated in three years and longer after that.

I don’t know what Ruby said to her, but Meg got so angry that she packed her bags and came to us. We were just celebrating uncle Crowley’s birthday, even though he complained that you don’t celebrate birthdays the wrong side of 50, when Meg came in. She was screaming in agony, Josie and Jodie were running towards her immediately, scared she was badly hurt, but on the outside there wasn’t a mark on her.

Slowly she told us what happened, all the time groaning in pain. She had a bad headache and her stomach was in knots, and we couldn’t do anything for her. Everyone looked at Dean, who seemed concentrated.

“I’m trying, ok? I’ve never done this on purpose.” He announced to everyone when we couldn’t feel the familiar bond form.

“Maybe I can’t. Maybe she’s hurting too bad. I don’t know!” Dean got louder, as if he felt guilty for Meg’s pain, when it was Ruby who was to blame.

“It’s ok, son.” Bobby said. “Maybe some aspirin will work.” He seemed completely lost as well but the medicine he gave Meg really helped her, or maybe it was the comfort of all of us caring about her, I don‘t know.

When she wasn’t in terrible pain anymore, she started crying. I had never seen her cry before, but I guess all the pressure that she felt, now came out this way.

She was worried about her siblings and that for some reason Dean wouldn’t be able to adopt her, so mom got over and hugged her tightly.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart. We’ll find a way to help you through the pain. And even if something doesn’t work with the bond, you’re family, just like Cas is, who cares about the bond.”

Meg let herself be held by mom, and I don’t know why, but she seemed like she was finally at home and the next minute, we all sniffed the air and knew that our pack was now bigger.

Meg was really happy, now that she was finally completely ours. She moved in with Jo, who was not only her best friend anymore, but in a way her sister too. Ellen complained that the two girls didn’t stop chattering ‘til very late in the night now that they shared a room.

One day, when Charlie, Meg and me were helping with the shopping, we saw Ruby at the mall. She took one sniff at us and at her daughter and we could see shock and anger on her face when she learned what had happened, but Meg didn’t even flinch at seeing her. She just went into the other aisle with the cart.

The end of the year came. It was a year that brought change. Jo would present next year, I would start middle school, and Cas would be in a rush to get his college applications out after graduation.

We all sat there and cheered when Cas got his diploma. He graduated with the best grades ever, even in omega-edu, however much it cost him to be good in the stupid subject.

Dean was worrying me a little and I talked to Charlie about it, too. The comments about his funky scent hadn’t died down even after a few months, so we couldn’t understand at first, why he didn’t want the school year to end. If anything, he would finally be rid of Alistair next year after all.

When we saw him cry at Cas’ graduation we knew what was up with him. He didn’t want the school year to end because Cas would be gone.

I asked Mom how it felt like when someone’s mate wasn’t around anymore. She said that she was mostly relieved when our Dad had gone so she didn’t know how hard it really was for Dean. And for Cas too, obviously.

When I grow up I wanna be able to help people like my brother and his mate, so that nobody would ever have to suffer through something like the two of them are going through.

 

The first week after school had ended for the summer was quiet. Dean and Cas were hardly seen, until I ran into Cas one morning when I went out to bring mom the post for the Roadhouse and saw him by the mailbox.

“Hey, Cas.” I greeted.

“Hey, Sammy.”

“Dean let you out of his sight for once, ay?” I teased.

“I snuck out,” Cas admitted. “He gets so sad when he sees me put my applications into the mail.”

Just then I noticed three thick envelopes in his hand.

“Have you heard back from anyone yet?”

“No, not yet. I am really excited though. I would like to wait for the postman and see if he’s got something for me, but I fear that Dean will wake up and be sad again when he can’t find me.”

“Hey, Cas? Would you be ok if me and Charlie took over the post duty?”

“Would you really?”

“Sure. And if you have any more applications we can take them in too.”

“That’s very kind of you, but I have already applied to any omega school in the country.”

“I’m sure you’ll hear back from them soon,” I tried to encourage him.

“Yes, that is what I fear. That somehow makes it real, you know?”

I didn’t understand him.

“Don’t worry about it, Sam. And thanks for doing this.”

“Of course, Cas. You’re my big brother too now, remember? There‘s nothing I wouldn‘t do for you.”

“Same here, Sammy,” Cas said and walked back to the garage, while I waited for the postman. I was kinda sad, because Cas had sounded so much like Dean just now. We would all miss him so much.

This wasn’t right. Cas shouldn’t have to be without Dean. Suddenly I understood why the old law about mated omegas not being allowed to go to university had been laid down. It hurts them and their mate too much to be separated, if the mate couldn’t move away as well for some reason. But people used that law to say that omegas were supposed to be dumb by nature. If mating was only allowed once both partners finished school and it didn‘t matter if they were mated or not later on, it would be much easier, but I was sure that nobody would listen to me anyway if I said something.

The next week, me and Charlie took turns to go to the mailbox and handed Cas big envelope after big envelope when Dean wasn‘t looking. Every college wanted to have him. We were so proud of him, but we also knew that if Cas had so many choices, he’d choose the best one possible which could be miles and miles away.

In the end, he told everyone while we were cleaning the Roadhouse one night.

“I kinda have an announcement to make,” he said shyly. “I have heard back from all the colleges I applied to and I decided that I’ll go to Harvard-omega.”

“Harvard-Omega?” Mom asked, impressed. “Honey, I’m so proud of you. That’s the best college in the country,” and she ran over to hug him.

Everyone congratulated Cas afterwards. Dean beamed at Cas, but when his head was over his shoulder in a tight embrace, his jaw muscles twitched and he closed his eyes as if he were in pain.

When they stopped hugging, Dean had plastered the grin back onto his face.

“That calls for a party, right? Let’s get everyone here. Missouri and Richard, Rufus, Eleanor, Jim, … what about you parents, Cas?”

“Oh they can come too, I don‘t mind.” Everyone was a little quiet, the lack of pack bond Cas had lived with all his life made us sad. We couldn’t imagine how it felt to not be really part of something and always be living in two worlds at once. But that was over now, Cas had chosen us over them.

“As long as no one invites my parents,” Meg groused and everyone laughed.

I don’t remember much from the party that was on the next day, only that I overheard Eleanor and Dean talking. It sounded like she was sending him and Cas on a road trip to meet a couple that she had contacted, who would be willing to come into her practice to have some kind of test or something. It was a couple of days drive away and Dean seemed to like the possibility of having that time completely alone with Cas right before the big college preparations started.

That must have been when I fell asleep, because I just remember how Mom and Uncle Bobby had woken me, Charlie and the twins. They sent us directly to bed but reminded us to brush our teeth because we had eaten so much cake and just fell asleep at the table.

When I climbed into bed, I thought about how cool it would be to go on road trips with my big brother and I had the feeling that we would do that sooner than I expected.


	8. Out onto the open Road

Dean and Cas

 

“Dean, you’re going into the wrong direction.”

“No, I’m not. Damn it. It’s you who can’t read a map. I saw a sign, okay?”

“No, you didn’t. I told you to take the turn 10 miles ago and you didn’t. Now it‘s getting dark and even if we turned back now, we wouldn‘t find the right crossing again.”

Dean pulled up when he saw a stretch near the road where he could park the car. “Hand me the damn map.”

Cas handed it to him and crossed his arms, glaring as Dean stared at the map and crumpled the edges.

He deflated. “We’re going the wrong way.”

“As I’ve told you,” Cas was righteously angry now.

“I’m sorry, ok? And I’m even more sorry because it looks like we have to spend the night in the car.”

“There was a motel about 8 miles back. Let’s go there.”

Dean nodded without wanting to anger Cas further and just turned the car back around. Soon the motel just off the highway came in to view.

“Ah, you beauty.” Dean grinned and Cas could feel his anger dissolve against his will. “Cas baby, you’re awesome. I don’t know where I’d be without you.”

“Freezing and starving us to death while we spend the night in your car, most likely.”

“Ah, don’t be like that. Think about it, if I hadn’t gotten us lost, you’d never have seen the motel and we’d really have to sleep in the car.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

“See, you can be glad that you have me.”

“Shut up and let’s get us checked in before you gloat even more.”

Dean grabbed the duffel from the back seat and clasped a hand on Cas’ shoulder as they walked towards the reception. “Look at us, fighting like an old married couple already. I bet we‘re still gonna argue like this in 40 years or so.”

“I hope by then you will have developed a sense of direction and can just accept that I’m right,” Cas actually stuck his tongue out at him.

“Never,” Dean said in shock, as if it was totally unimaginable that that could ever happen. He then turned to the clerk with a grin.

“One room, please.”

“Two singles?”

“Uh, no. If you got a queen or a king, that would be fine.”

The clerk sniffed the air. “I’m gonna have to charge you more than the usual rate then.”

“Huh what, why?” Dean asked in amazement.

“Because you’re not mated to the omega with you. It’s likely that you’ll break the furniture when you breed him tonight. The extra money is for higher insurance.”

“I wasn’t gonna…” Dean blushed and then he asked himself why it was any of the hotel clerks business anyway, their love life was private. And she had said, ‘when you breed him’, like there wasn’t even a question that that was why they wanted to sleep in one room.

“Two singles will be fine,” said Cas, but the clerk didn’t even react, but instead asked Dean again, clearly not caring about Cas‘ opinion because he was an omega.

“What’s it gonna be then?”

“Just give us a damn king sized bed and do what you gotta do!” Dean pressed out and got out his credit card. It belonged to a deposit bank account in which Eleanor and Adrienne paid into for Dean to be able to go on research trips for them.

The two doctors had at last decided to start their biology study about all secondary genders and Eleanor had proposed Dean as their assistant, to travel the country to talk and bring back people who they had contacted or to talk to anyone who might be interested in joining their study.

Officially the study was in Adrienne’s name and therefore it had been approved before the directorate of their local hospital could veto it. It was alright that Eleanor as an omegalogist was in on it and had hired Dean in the same go. The national medical board didn’t think much about it, Adrienne Forbes was from a very influential and rich family, so they looked past her quirks to do a completely unnecessary study which would come to nothing anyway. They didn’t even hand out aid money, so the costs would have to be settled by themselves.

Usually when alphas handed in their applications for medical studies and noted omegas as their co-workers, it meant that the omega in question was their muse or their stress reliever throughout the empirical research. In some cases the omega co-worker was even allowed to hold a syringe at times, but this wasn’t what their study would be about.

Eleanor would do most of the examinations with help from Adrienne via videoconference to give intake about alpha peculiarities and with help from Dean, who already knew more about biology then most other people even more than those who had studied already.

Adrienne mourned the lack of a beta expert in their study, but beta specialists were very thin on the ground, and neither Eleanor nor Adrienne knew someone they would trust enough. They would think about that problem later, and maybe have a beta specialist read over their finished findings and essay once they were ready to publish.

They knew that beta specialists didn’t know much more about their own biology than the doctors who specialised in the other secondary genders. There was a reason why nobody knew why betas sometimes bred and sometimes didn’t.

This question was fascinating to them all, Dean had told Cas all he knew on the way over here and Cas was keenly interested in the project as well. Dean wanted to take him with him on this first trip he made to investigate, meaning they would have some more time to themselves before Cas left. Plus, their case was doubtlessly very fascinating as well.

Eleanor had been in contact with a mated pair of female betas, Ava and Becky Wilson. They had sought help online when their local healing facility in Prioria, Indiana couldn’t help them determine why Becky was pregnant now. So Dean and Cas were sent to do a preliminary evaluation.

Eleanor was very aware of Dean’s almost uncanny ability to read people, she wanted to know if they were just wasting their time here and if Dean thought that Becky was pregnant because of other reasons than intercourse with her mate.

If Dean thought they were telling the truth, they would ask the couple to stop by Eleanor’s laboratory in the Lawrence healing facility and get all sorts of tests done. Their case study would keep them all busy for the next few years because lots of tests had to be done or even developed first, in order to do a concise and complete assessment of human biology.

Eleanor was wary of doing her research and examinations right under the nose of Azazel and his board, but since they didn’t have the pecuniary means to build their own laboratory, she’d have to do it at work, with Richard being her most fierce supporter. And if need be, Adrienne would be called, which would of course bring the hospital great prestige. Azazel would just have to gnawingly accept their study being conducted on Lawrence healing facility grounds.

 

Dean opened their room and let the duffel fall onto the bed. The motel room was a little sleazy, but he wouldn’t spend his whole budget for fancy hotels or expensive food. He knew that their resources weren’t unlimited and he planned on doing this more often. But also, they needed to eat something now.

“Dinner?” he asked Cas.

“Hmm hmm.” Cas obviously hadn’t shaken off the clerk’s behaviour yet.

“Baby, don’t let her get to you like that.”

“I won’t. I only wish a lot of things were different, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.” Dean came over and hugged Cas tight, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. “Hey, why don’t you see if you can get any decent program on the thing and I’ll get us something to bite, okay?”

“As long as it’s not my neck,” Cas smirked but underneath the joke was pain.

“Not just yet, we need to get the insurance for the room back once we check out,” Dean rolled his eyes, clearly showing how ridiculous in all was to him and how much he wished the general situation was different.

“Be right back,” he announced and sprinted off to the diner that was close to the motel, leaving Cas alone with his thoughts and headache causing bad TV reception. He turned it off after a couple of minutes and fluffed a pillow against the headboard to sit on the bed and brood over what had happened.

 

Their whole society was built on omega oppression and domination, there was no denying that. Cas wished that it just wouldn‘t matter anymore what gender you were or who you chose to spend your life with, but as long as alphas were so clearly preferred by anyone, he could never feel like he was Dean‘s equal, no matter how much he loved him. Society liked to keep omegas obscure and little.

Most omegas had their first pups in the first year after their presentation, causing their own growth to stop and essentially keeping them petite, just the way most alphas liked them.

Dean had told him about alpha education classes, about videos were omegas had really small penises, or basically looked like a 15 year old. So Cas looked down himself, at 17 still not having stopped to grow and still a bit taller than Dean.

Maybe Dean wouldn‘t like him anymore when he didn‘t see the big omega everyday? Maybe Dean wouldn‘t think he was pretty if Cas kept growing. Meg was tiny in comparison to Cas, even though she was a girl, she clearly showed that she had sprung from a line of small omegas. What if Dean secretly didn‘t even like how Cas looked?

The thought didn‘t let go of him and when Dean got back, Cas‘ headache had gotten worse.

“Hey, babe. Dinner.“ Dean smirked and waved a take out bag and a big paper cup at him. He set up their burgers and punched two straws into the lid of the coke while Cas lumbered over to the table.

 

“Penny for your thoughts,” Dean said, 20 minutes later, when Cas hadn’t spoken all through dinner and they had finished eating.

“I don’t know,” Cas said, fumbling around with a napkin. “All that’s happened got me wondering.”

“ ‘bout what?” Dean asked, slurping the last of the coke out of the cup.

“What if, when we can finally get mated… like when we undress, you don’t like what you see?”

“How do you mean that?”

“Just in a general way. What if we find out that I’m unattractive to you once my clothes are off?”

“Do you think that could happen?”

Cas just shrugged in response.

“Are you- … are you thinking I won’t like you when I find out that you’ve got a small dick?” Dean said crudely, to show how little he cared about that.

Cas bristled up. “Why would you think my penis is small?”

“Isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not. It’s pretty substantial, I can guarantee you that.”

“I’m sorry. I guess I don’t have that much experience with it. I only got Alistair’s videos as reference.”

“Exactly my point, Dean! What if once we get our clothes off and you are disappointed and don’t even want to mate with me? What if we think this is it, and in the end we don‘t belong together at all?”

Cas stopped talking and they hadn’t even realised that they both had gotten up, but now they stood there, facing each other, both with tears in their eyes on opposite sides of the table.

Dean gulped around a huge lump in his throat. “I don’t know, Cas. And it could be the other way around as well, maybe you won’t like what you see when we’re not hidden from each other any more. But…,” he drew in a shaky breath “I’m sure we’ll think of something. Okay? We’ll both think about this and we’ll find a way to make sure that it works.”

“Ok,” Cas said, wiping a stray tear from his cheek and got around the table to where Dean stood. “Besides, we know that this works,” he gave him a kiss, “so that’s something, right?”

“It is.” Dean beamed. “And you know what else works?”

“What?”

“You being the little spoon, my big omega.” Dean looked at the bed and yawned. “How about we hit the sack?”

“Yes, that sounds pleasant. But what if I wanna be the big spoon for once?”

“You can be anything you like.”

And so, when they curled up together, Cas was happy being the big spoon while Dean traced his fingers over his lower arm that clung around his torso.

It might not be a big victory in terms of equality for omegas, but by a small gesture showed that Dean and him weren’t in any way pressured into backwards traditions.  
The big changes for omegas would have to wait until they were ready, Cas was sure their study would help get rid of a few stereotypes and stigmatisms at least and he was glad to be part of it. Perhaps this was what he could do to improve matters for his own gender.

“Ridiculous Cas,” Dean spoke up sleepily a few minutes later, “that you’re the one who’s chickened about us. I’m the one with the disgusting scent that will probably make you run away as soon as you can and hide in terror to get away from my stench,” he tried to laugh and Cas realised he wasn’t the only one in the room with anxiety about their future.

“I never would, Dean.”

“Did you get a proper sniff, you know, that day?”

“No not really, I was too focused on all the mixed alpha pheromones at the time, I only know that once they had all gone, I scented you and you smelled different, not disgusting. Definitely interesting.”

Dean hummed in approval though they both knew they wouldn‘t know for sure if Dean‘s smell was gonna be obstructive to them until they tried.

They shifted so their heads were fully on the pillow and Cas grabbed Dean‘s shoulder again and pressed a kiss to the fabric of his t shirt above it.

“We’ll figure that out too. I‘m sure of it. Besides, it‘s not like we let ever let our hormones and scents bother us too much. I‘m with you because of you. Because of everything you are, not because some hallucinating hormone or an arousing scent made me do it.”

“Same here, Cas. I don’t care that you suppress every smell you have, I like you the way you are. And I think it‘s good that your mom still gets you your meds, even though you‘re technically not theirs anymore. Makes me more at ease with you going into the world now. I don‘t mind not being able to smell you, and you‘re safer when no one else can either.”

“Yes, that‘s true.” Cas pondered about it a while and then spoke up again: “One day though, I would like you to smell all of me and I want to smell all of you as well, but for the time being we don’t need that, we need-”

“-sleep?” Dean rasped tiredly.

“Yes.” Cas tugged Dean closer and breathed into the hairline at the base of his neck, smelling something that was distinctly alpha and faintly Dean, mixed with his shower gel, a scent that was quickly becoming very familiar to him and made him fall asleep in the simple comfort it provided.

 

The next day they reached the city they were travelling to, Dean conceding to let Cas read the map and trusting him to tell him the right turn ups. They were glad that another clerk was at the desk when they checked out, who was much nicer than the one from last night.

When they pulled up at the Wilson residence, they were a little nervous, Dean more than Cas because he knew he would do something like this more often, but that didn’t help him with his nerves on his first job. He was glad that Cas was with him.

They rung the doorbell and a brown haired girl with blonde strands in her hair opened the door, their first impression of her was that she was very bouncy and excitable because she looked from one to the other of her visitors faster than it was strictly polite, hopping up and down on the soles of her feet..

“Hello, we’re Dean Winchester and Cas Novak, ma’am. We’re coming from Dr. Eleanor Visyak. I assume you’re one of the Ms. Wilsons?”

“Becky Wilson.” The heavily pregnant woman introduced herself. “Please come in, I’ll get my wife.”

They stood awkwardly in the entrance hall of the small house until another young woman came out of what they assumed was their living room and she and her mate led them to the kitchen.

“Do you want something, water or coffee?” The second woman, who could only be Ava Wilson, said when they sat down at the kitchen table.

“No, thank you.” Cas answered.

“We just like to get to your story first. I mean that’s why we’re here, isn’t it? How about you just tell us what’s going on and then we’ll make up an appointment with Dr. Visyak, ok?”

“I guess,” Ava said, her mate taking her hand and looking a little sad, before she spoke up.

“It’s just hard to do this outside of cyber space, you know?”

“Yes, the healing betas thought we were crazy when we explained what happened.”

“Why don’t you tell us, we’re here to listen.” Dean tried to calm them.

“No offence, but you kinda look like you’re a little too young to be actually qualified, and we kinda don’t need more crap about this.”

Dean looked at them with a steady gaze. “Believe me, I know weird in terms of biology. There is nothing you could say that would shock me. Dr. Visyak chose me as her assistant because I know my way around the subject, and I tell you that you can trust me about this. We,” he looked at Cas, who watched him with an awed expression, “would just like to hear the story in your own words, that’s all.”

The two women seemed much calmer now, but Ava had one last objection. “It’s kinda personal, though.”

“We’re here to help. But we can’t unless you tell us everything.”

Ava looked at Becky, who wore a timid expression, but nodded.

The more the two of them got into telling their story the more unreserved they got. Becky was a really jumpy, intensely passionate person and Ava was slightly theatrical but also had a great sense of humour.

They told them their life story. How they had been adopted as young teenage girls and had lived in their adopted parents’ basement, mostly keeping to themselves because people thought they were weird. They spent their times with all kinds of projects, filming or staging scenes for photographs, which were sometimes slightly disturbing, but they published them in an online blog and people were crazy for their staged still frame art. Becky herself also had started to write stories. She had started with fanfiction about pretty obscure horror shows and novels, but later on she had written the scripts for their films and now she was publishing her first original story in sequels.

Their friendship had progressed into romantic interest during the two years they had lived together before quite naturally, leaving them both a little surprised and disappointed when they both presented as betas. On the day that Becky presented, they had mated immediately, exchanging a bond bite in the heat of passion.

Their adoptive pack bond had been a little stronger than Cas’ and they both reported they had felt little pangs of hurt in their heads when they felt it snap, but it had been replaced by their mate bond almost immediately.

“If you don’t mind my asking, but how do two beta women mate? This is something that Dr. Visyak is fiercely interested in. I know this is very private but it will help us to determine what happened here,” Dean interrupted their story at this point.

They hummed and hawed a little before answering that it mostly involved rubbing or toys, and Dean nodded his encouragement for them to continue, that neither he nor Cas pulled a face showed the others that they weren‘t being judged by them and so they continued.

When they had first found out that Becky had gotten pregnant, they had yelled at each other. Ava didn’t believe Becky at first when she cried and told her that she hadn’t cheated on her, but in the end she realised that they had been constantly together during the time that Becky conceived and Ava in the end came to the realisation that she must be the second biological mother of the child.

“Obviously, nobody at the healing facility believed us and they called Becky all kinds of dirty names,” Ava broke out into tears.

“I know, when my uncle fell pregnant with his twins, it was just the same,” Dean said. “He didn’t even wanna go in to his check ups and Dr. Visyak came out to their house to deliver the pups. It’s one of my first memories, that I remembered how enormous he was before he birthed. We still sometimes tease him about it. I bet Dr. Visyak would deliver your pup too if you let her, plus she never judges anyone.”

“That sounds good,” Becky said enthusiastically, “but what kind of tests would we have to do, to you know prove that Ava is the mother of my child?”

“Oh, um… we’d need blood samples and a DNA analysis and we’d have to test the both of you for…”

“Potent liquids,” Cas jumped in. “There is hardly anything known about our biology. We do not know if women have something equal to ejaculate, and then we also don’t know who is fertile and who isn’t. That can all be determined.”

Becky and Ava looked hopefully at each other.

“But, I have to inform you that you’d have to agree for us to make the findings public.” Cas said with a small frown.

“What does that mean?” Becky said, again with a timid expression.

“All things we find out will be part of a study. It will take a while and you’ll have to stay in contact with my supervisors, but this all this will be part of a medical research and we hope, a breakthrough. Something that let’s us know once and for all what’s what about our own biology. Think about it, wouldn’t you want to live in a world where no one could call you names and make you question your partner if we only knew more about all of this?”

Both Becky and Ava nodded after Dean had finished his passionate speech and Cas just said there with a look of pure adoration for Dean in his eyes which made him a little uncomfortable.

Becky nodded at Ava, who returned the nod after a bit. “We’re in. We wanna know what‘s what as well, and we agree that our case will be made public to help others like us.”

 

When they walked back to the Impala from the house, Dean held out his fist to Cas, who just looked at it confusedly.

“Dude, fistbump. We just got our first case on the study.”

Cas brought his balled hand to Dean’s and meekly pushed against it.

“Pathetic,” Dean laughed and threw his arm around Cas.

“Let’s celebrate before we go back home, ok?”

“I’d love to, but I kinda have to get back and start organising stuff.”

“Oh, ok.” Dean said, deflating a little, he licked his lips. “Of course, you’re right.”

“We’ll do something special before I… before then. Ok?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Dean said, still a little sad and headed for the driver’s side of the car.

“Hey,” Cas came round and crowded against Dean, pressing him against the car and kissed him so that Dean temporarily forgot to breathe. “Don’t be sad.”

“Seriously? You kiss a man like that and then you just say: Don’t be sad?”

“Yes?”

“Dude, when you’re onto me like that I hear the angels sing, I am absolutely not sad. Do it again,” and he pulled Cas closer again, gasping and pulling him so close that Cas had to brace his hands on the roof of the car if he didn’t want to squash Dean.

“That was for you. So you’re not sad.”

Dean gently let go of Cas and waited until he got in the car.

“Hey, if we haul ass we don’t need to sleep in that shitty motel again, but can wait for the next one.”

“You think any other motel would be different?” Cas didn’t specify if he meant the quality and attitude of the personnel.

“Yeah, I guess not.” Dean said, clearly thinking about both.

“Let’s just see how far we get. Maybe we’ll just take turns driving and sleep when it’s not our turn. We can do either, kinda nice to think about how free life on the road is.”

“Babe, if you start breaking out in song next, I will have to punch you.”

“You wouldn’t, but you’d probably kiss me to death.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Dean smirked when he looked into the rear-view mirror and pulled away from the curb.


	9. Bittersweet Beginnings

Dean and Cas

The last night before Cas went away, they spent in the tree house. They didn’t sleep, mostly they just stared at each other, at other times they roamed each others bodies with reverence, kissing and touching almost everywhere.

Then there were times when the wind that blew by was the only thing that was heard. The night passed away and neither of them wanted to sleep. The new morning would bring their separation but also new possibilities for the both of them.

Cas would sure have a very good time away at college, Dean would go back to being with his family and had the new project which would hopefully in time help everyone. Yet, an important part of themselves would now be missing for long streaks of time at once.

Some time around three in the morning, both started to cry in each others arms, the daunting prospect too much to handle. Dean knew that the amphetamine level in their blood was at it’s lowest concentration during this particular time of the night, but that couldn’t help them shake the desperation that sat deep inside their hearts.

Slowly, they calmed down, because how ever much this separation hurt, they weren’t alone with feeling it, the other feeling the same pain, just as acutely.

When the first light of morning crept into the tree house, they had vowed to each other again that they were gonna get through this and wouldn’t let go, no matter how hard it seemed. They told each other that they loved each other for the first time in so many words, and despite the good feeling they had at saying those words to the other, they still cut deep because it made them keenly aware of what they couldn’t have right now.

Cas left at midday, in an old car that Bobby had fixed up for him which Dean had once called a pimp mobile. Their whole family was there, helping Cas load some boxes he would put into his dorm room as soon as he got there, making sure to leave all his priced possessions in the small garage apartment, so that Dean wouldn’t feel so alone when he was in there.

Dean forced himself to stay until Cas was out of sight while the others went back to their routine after he had driven off. Dean just stood and watched the distant lights of Cas’ car until he turned round the corner.

They hadn’t had it in themselves to say any meaningful words in their last minutes together, Cas had said goodbye with a: “Take care of my cactus.”

About half an hour after Cas tail lights had disappeared, Dean’s stiff frame dissolved and quite naturally his steps took him up into the garage apartment. He laid down onto the bed which still smelled of Cas and watched the cactus on the window sill.

He stared at it for a long time, without properly seeing it and then curled himself together, hiding his tear stricken face in the pillow.

 

Cas

 

Cas wasn’t in any shape to drive. The sleepless night and seeing Dean in his rear-view mirror had given him the rest. He got a few miles out of town before he pulled up to a disused factory parking lot and just curled himself together on the back seat and cried.

He must have fallen asleep for some hours, because when he woke up he saw the sun shining in from a different angle than before. He rummaged in his bag for some water and something to eat which Mary had put there this morning and ate and drank while walking a few rounds around his car.

All the time he walked and ate, he kept looking back into the direction of the town, where he knew all his loved ones were, but in the end, he got behind the wheel with a heavy heart and was on his way again, towards college, towards the future he had dreamed about since he was a small boy, but he just couldn’t feel completely happy.

He didn’t pull up at any motels or diners, just kept on driving and sleeping on the back seat. He didn’t feel like talking to anyone. His journey only stopped when he reached his destination.

He drove around the ancient dignified buildings until he found the number of his dormitory. Then he took a short trip inside to find his room number, before he came in with a box, and promptly met his new roommate.

“Hey, there. You look like shit.” The guy said but gave him a sympathetic smile.

“You look intoxicated… or drugged.” Cas quipped.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I think my fourth bong load was a bit too much in the end.”

Despite himself, Cas could feel laughter bubbling up inside him. The other boy laughed with him, his long laughter must have been triggered by his drug consumption, because neither of them calmed down during the next half hour.

“My name’s Andy, by the way.” He said once he could speak again, without throwing a fit of laughter.

“Cas,” he announced. He didn’t really go by his full name anymore anyway.

“Cas? That’s a cool name.” Andy observed with a repressed giggle. “Tell me Cas, where is your stuff?”

“It’s in my car.”

“Need a hand?”

“Please.”

After they had carried in Cas’ few boxes, Andy popped his neck joints and said: “Wow, I’m starving. How about we go and explore the cafeteria and you can tell me why you looked like your dog just died when you came in here?”

“Ok, but only if your uh… forth bong load doesn’t make a regular reappearance in our dorm.”

“It’s a deal,” Andy grinned.

It very much looked like Cas had been so lucky as to find a friend on his first day here.

 

Charlie

 

“Dean, stop moping around. You haven’t moved in two days,” I pulled at his arms.

“No stop, I don’t wanna get up.”

“But you will, unless you want me to sit on you until you do, and no offence bro, but you stink. You need a shower. And then you’re gonna come out of here and show everyone that you’re still alive.”

“You’re a pain in the ass you know that, sister?”

But he finally moved and got into the bathroom.

“Yeah well, you’re lucky. If it hadn’t been me, mom would have sent Jo³ and you know how they can be.”

“So you’re the smaller evil, is that it?”

He ruffled my hair and I kicked him in the shin.

“Ouch. Did you have to do that?”

“Yeah, well. You had us all crazy worried about you. You deserved that kick.” I stemmed my arms into my sides. “Now get into the shower before my nose falls off, stinky.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m going.”

I waited until Dean was finished in the bathroom and when he came out he looked much fresher and definitely smelled better.

“I don’t suppose you brought food, too?” he said past his toothbrush.

“No, I didn’t. But we can pick something up when you go to Eleanor today.”

“What? Why?”

“She called at the house and said you might want to come over there because the Wilsons?” I said the word in an asking tone because I wasn’t sure I heard the name right, “are coming over for prelim-something tests.”

“Preliminary tests?”

“Yep, that.” I nodded.

“Ok, good. Then I’ll go over there ASAP.” He spewed his toothpaste into the bathroom sink. “But why did you say we?”

“Because I’m coming with you.” I declared. “I’m gonna wait there until you’re finished and then you’re taking me for ice cream and to the bookstore and to the other store where they have games.”

“And why would I wanna do that?” Dean said and grinned at me.

“Because I say so, that’s why. You’re not gonna lie around here being sad all the time. I want my brother back, not a moping idjit.”

“You’ve been spending way too much time with Bobby.”

“And you haven’t spent enough time with him,” I bit back, but I regretted it immediately, because Dean was looking hurt again.

“Sorry,” I came over and hugged him. “Didn’t mean to be mean. I love you.”

“I know.” Dean answered with the right comeback.

“Ok, short stack, then let’s get down to the firing squad. You have to hold my hand while they shoot me.”

 

Our family wasn’t too mean to my big brother for scaring us, but Jo and Meg gave him a smack before we left and everyone seemed pretty relieved to see him on his feet.

We met Eleanor outside of the healing facility and walked in while she filled Dean in on a lot of complicated sounding things about the people who would come by soon. Dean tried to rush us by a desk in the main room, but I didn’t understand why at first.

Then someone spoke up behind me: “Ew, look at that, a ginger whore in the making.”

I turned around and saw the person who hands out meds about whom I had already been told. I decided to go closer and when I did, the man freaked.

“Stay away from me,” but I didn’t listen and looked up at him.

“BOO,” I yelled and he flinched. “Booooo, boooo. Run away, you might catch my gingerness.”

He backed away into a shelf in the room behind his desk. Several bottles and packages fell onto the floor and broke.

“Oh dear me, Jake,” Eleanor spoke up. “I guess you have to clean that up now and also explain why you squandered much needed medicine. She looked at the broken bottles that had held liquids before. “Good luck explaining that to Azazel. Come on, you two,” she said to us and we walked on to her office.

“You want anything? I have mineral water which tastes awful but the hospital is contracted to serve it,” she opened a mini fridge next to a filing cabinet, “or some juice.”

“Juice would be cool,” I said and sat down on Eleanor’s office chair because I could swirl around with it. While I did that, I looked at her computer.

“Hey, auntie Eleanor? What’s this you’re doing there?”

“Oh, that.” She said while Dean handed her some glasses to pour juice into. “I was trying to set up a forum, so that potential patients could check us out online, but it’s not really working.”

“Hmm, seems like the html coding of your website is completely off,” I remarked and Dean snorted.

“Little computer geek, my sister,” and he handed me my glass.

“How did you want it to look anyway?” I asked and Eleanor opened another internet tab and typed in another web directory.

“Like this somehow,” she said and lent down in shock when I opened her poor excuse of an html editor for her website and started clearing up the mess she had made of the coding.

“You’re a genius,” she said and Dean groaned.

“Don’t tell her that, she might believe you.”

“Pssht, I’m working,” I said while I typed on and then he heard a knock on the door.

“And it looks like your patience are here, so you have work too.”

“Patients, dear. Patients.” She said it so the ‘t’ sound at the end was very clear.

“Isn’t that what I said?”

“Not quite.”

“She can code a website but can’t pronounce the easiest words.” Dean was being a jerk again and I gave him my best bitch face which I had learned from Sammy. It worked, because Dean raised his hands in surrender.

“Ok ok, sorry. You go and do your thing.” He pressed a kiss onto my hair before he left to follow Eleanor into the test room.

They needed very long to come back, so after I was finished with the website I played a 100 level online pacman game I was meaning to win for some time now and by the time I had finished, they came over while I was doing a victory dance all over the office.

“Hey, look. I finished the game.”

“Well done you,” Eleanor said.

Dean raised an eyebrow at me.

“Oh yeah, and there is your website.” I flashed the tab up. “I put an editor in, so that you can write texts with all the complicated words in there without making the format funky again. Oh and down there,” I pointed at the right corner of the website, “there’s my credit. Don’t remove that.”

“Made by Charlie Winchester,” Eleanor laughed. “How about we put. ‘Web design by Charlie Winchester there, instead?”

“That’s cool.” I made the adjustment to the coding. “So what did you work on?”

“We tested a couple that expects a baby with two mothers.”

“For real?” I was amazed. “That’s so cool! Dean told me you were doing boring research stuff!”

“I didn’t say it was boring.” Dean ruffled my hair again and I had to step on his foot for it.

“Stop it, you two. Don’t make me tell your mother that you didn’t behave. Or your aunty Ellen.”

We stopped bickering then, because mommy wasn’t scary by herself, but if you put her together with Ellen, they were fierce.

“Now, I have to tell Adrienne about our first case, but the video chat has some new functions and the buttons are all wrong.”

“Let me see,” I sighed and set up the thing, pleased at Eleanor’s grateful expression.

“You’re a jewel, Charlie.”

“Don’t mention it.” Suddenly I had an idea. “Wait, could I use your computer for another sec?” I scooted over with the rolling chair and sent an email to my mail address and another email that was just a little bit longer.

“That’s it. Now. Big brother? Ice cream!” and I pulled Dean out of the room. “Bye, Eleanor, see you soon.”

“Bye, you crazy kids,” we heard Eleanor laugh.

Dean didn’t want to admit that he had a good time for the rest of the afternoon, but he totally did. First we were walking around with our ice cream cones and then we checked several stores and I had to drag Dean away from the science books to get him to the adventure section.

Later we saw that mean looking guy Randy from our bus at the mall. He was after a pretty omega in Dean’s year but he didn’t get far with her because we hid behind one of the fake bushes behind his bench and made loud farting noises whenever he opened his mouth to talk to her. It was really funny that he didn’t know where the noise came from and looked around like an idiot. In the end though, he caught us and we had to run pretty fast while he chased after us.

We were still laughing when we came back home. Then Bobby called Dean into the garage, because he and Jim the mechanic needed a third pair of hands on a car.

“Hey, come to home when you’re finished, ok? I might have a surprise for you.”

“Yeah ok, I will.”

I bounced over and found mom and Sammy in the kitchen where she tried to teach him how to bake a pie.

“Hi, you two. Are you making a pie? For Dean?”

“Yes, honey. We figured he needs something nice now. Wanna help?”

“Sorry, can’t help you. I figured out something nice for him myself. You’ll get to say hi, too.”

I bounced on down the hall into Dean’s room, giggling because their confusion just looked so funny. When I was there, I booted up the computer and checked my mails.  
There was the one I was waiting for. It read: “Installed the programme. What now?”.

I opened the other mail I had sent to myself from Eleanor’s computer and clicked the link inside.

After I had installed the program as well and set up Dean‘s video camera, I dialled. A few seconds later, a familiar face popped up on the screen.

“Hi, there.” I waved and the person staring back at me waved as well.

 

Dean

 

The first thing Dean heard when he came in from the garage was laughter out of his room and the first thing he smelled was an apple pie baking in the oven.

“What are you all doing in my room?” He looked at his mother, brother and sister all crouching in front of his computer screen and Charlie waved him over.

“I told you I had a surprise for you, come here and look.”

Dean came over and took a rasping breath when he looked at the screen.

“Cas?”

“Hello, Dean.”

“How- I mean…what?”

“It was Charlie’s idea. She sent me an email today to set this up.”

“And then I did the same with your computer,” Charlie beamed, but just a few seconds later she disgustedly wiped her cheek where Dean had sloppily kissed her several times.

“Gross, bro.”

“I love you.”

“Yeah yeah, I know. No need to slobber all over me though.” She wiped over her cheek again. “Is he slobbering that much when he kisses you too, Cas?”

“Not all the time.” Cas giggled lightly and Dean felt his heart swell. Cas caught Dean’s gaze and asked: “How are you, Dean?”

“Fine. I’m good.”

“Don’t listen to him, Cas. He has been moping around ever since you left. I would barely get him to come out with me today,” Charlie said, obviously still pissed about Dean’s kiss attack.

“I haven’t been in a good place either,” Cas announced.

“I think it’s time we checked on the pie, isn’t it?” Mary took her two younger children by the hand and closed the door to Dean’s room with a fond smile towards her eldest.

“So tell me, how’s college treating you?” Dean started up but Cas talked over him.

“What did you and Charlie do today?”

Both laughed for a bit and then Dean said: “How about you start?” and Cas started talking about how he got to college and that he had met his roommate who seemed like a nice guy and potentially a good friend, and how his courses would start next week.

Dean told him about what he had done with Charlie today and that Eleanor had developed a quick DNA test that showed results almost immediately. They had determined that the baby of Ava and Becky Wilson clearly bore the genetic material of both women, but they didn’t yet know how that could happen. They would most likely have Ava taking several tests to find out how this was possible.

Eleanor mentioned something about a female ejaculation and that they had to test every possibility, also with Becky, probably after she had birthed the pup though. And they had found out that both betas they had tested so far had wombs, but that they would need to test further people to be sure about their findings. Eleanor would ask uncle Bobby if he wanted to be tested as well.

“Call it a hunch, but I don’t think he has one though.” Dean concluded. “Oh, and school will start soon for me too. I already saw the new alpha edu teacher in town today, while Randy was chasing me and Charlie. Meg and Jo have seen him too and had told us what he looked like. He seemed nice enough from what I could see while we raced by. I think they said, his name was Balthazar or something. Anyway, apart from you not being here, things are okay.”

Dean was sad for a second, but then he rallied. “But hey, at least I can see you now, thanks to Charlie.”

“Yes, that’s true. We should do this every week… Or every 3 days,” he amended when the time seemed too long to him.

“And by the way, there was something that I thought about since Charlie sent me the link to the video chat.”

“Shoot,” Dean said.

“I can see you now and I can’t touch you. And you can’t either.”

“Wow, Cas. Way to make us both feel better.”

“No, I meant. We can’t touch each other, but we can see each other.”

Dean thought about it. “I don’t get it,” he frowned.

“Then what if I do this,” Cas said and popped a button of his shirt, exposing a streak of tanned flesh on the lower side of his collar bone.

“You want us to…”

“Would that be ok?”

“Hell, yeah. But let’s do that when we’re alone in the house or in your case, dorm.”

“My roommate Andy is going home on the weekends.” Cas actually wriggled his eyebrows, which made Dean break out in a full bodied laugh.

“It’s a date. I just have to set my computer up somewhere different, so that nobody can walk in when we do this.”

“The garage?” They both said at the same time.

“Perfect, I look forward to seeing much more of you, Dean. But I think I have to go now.”

“Before you go though: I… I love you.”

Cas’ gaze caught Dean’s. They had said those words in the tree house without knowing when they were gonna say them to each other’s face again, but now that they did, they had lost their painful twinge to them.

“I love you too,” Cas rasped deeply and Dean saw him reach out to press the button that would end the call, before the video broadcast disrupted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Edit: 21st of October) I just signed up for NaNoWriMo with my idea for the sequel and it will hopefully help me to finish the next part soon.


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